A Matter of Balance
by Rose Madder
Summary: Cole's powers start to get out of control. His mixed heritage has deeper, unforeseen consequences, and some answers can only be given by someone with whom the Elders hoped they'd never have to deal again. Sequel to Cursed Be. WIP
1. Unbalanced

Note #1: Since I've been taking so long between chapters, I figured I'd rather remind my readers of a couple of things about previous installments. One of them is, if you don't remember the shawl I'm referring to at the end of this chapter, just check the last chapter of "Fruit of My Womb". And the other one is, I mentioned on chapter 1 of "Cursed Be" that Cole has a human client whom he'll be representing in court in a few days. The trial per se isn't relevant to this story, but the fact that there'll be a trial is.

Note #2: 'Confused reader' who reviewed chapter 17 of "Cursed Be", no, I don't mind constructive criticism, so feel free to express yourself. :-) I knew from the beginning that that story would be harder to write and to read than the previous ones, what with all the "guest characters", and even though I'm sad that you didn't like that story as much as the previous ones, I'm really glad that you haven't given up on this series, and I hope to live up to your expectations with this one. But I also hope that you don't have a problem with OCs in general, because two of them, who appeared on previous installments, are back for good in this story.

Note #3: Please let me know if you guys have any trouble viewing the formatting, especially the scene separators, because lately has been ignoring all my attempts to use asterisks, tic tac toes, dots or anything else except the horizontal line that you can see in this chapter. :-(

Timeline: This story take places on the week right after "Cursed Be", thus before Anya and Xander's wedding day and also before Melinda's birth.

Previous installments: Redemption - The Demon's Advocate - So Mote It Be - Fruit of My Womb - The Coleville Horror - Season of Hope - Cursed Be

Credits: I don't own any of the Charmed characters, I never meant to infringe anyone's copyrights, so please take this story for what it is -- fun -- and don't bother to suit me.

* * *

Leo leaned back against the pillows that Piper had fluffed for him and let out a contented sigh as she started to massage his sore feet, her fingers applying gentle pressure to the sole while she stroked them with oil covered hands.

"Thank you, honey," he sighed with his eyes closed. "My feet have been killing me for the last two weeks. It's like…"

"… like being pregnant with a seven pound baby?" Piper asked with a smile.

"More like eight," he said, opening his eyes and smiling back at her.

"Just one more week," she said. "I'm due in one week and then all those nasty symptoms will be over."

"And it will all be worth it when I get to hold our little one in my arms," he said, feeling his heart swell with love like it did every time he thought about their unborn daughter.

"Have Phoebe and Cole called yet?" he asked after a while.

"No," Piper said, shaking her head. "And I wish they would," she sighed. "I know that they don't need the Power of Three to vanquish a mere Daiva, but I hate to think that those two are out fighting demons and I don't know what's happening to them."

"Honey, they're both powerful witches," Leo said, reassuringly. "I'm sure that the Daiva won't even know what hit it."

"I know," Piper said, using her thumbs to gently knead his left heel. "Still…" -- she gave him a hesitant look -- "Don't you think that Cole has been a little bit off during the last couple of days?"

"Piper, to be completely honest," Leo sighed, "I don't think I have talked to Cole at all since Monday: and that would make not just two, but three days. He's been busy getting ready for the hearing tomorrow, and I have been spending a lot time with this new coven in France."

"Well, I think he has," Piper declared, turning her attention to his right foot. "I was watching him practice in the basement last night, and he did worse than he used to do when he first began to use his powers. He failed several times to do some simple things that I have seen him do before, and at the end he was tired and frustrated."

"Maybe I should talk to him," Leo said, frowning. "Cole can be very self-demanding, and I don't want him to become blocked by the anxiety."

Piper reached a rather sore point on his heel and he hissed softly as her fingers worked on it, gently kneading and rubbing.

"You," he said, with his eyes closed and a blissful smile on his lips, "are a wonderful, wonderful woman."

"No better than you deserve," she replied softly.

Leo sighed contently and let himself sink further into the pillows, but he suddenly jerked forward, bringing his hand to his temple and startling Piper.

"What happened?" she asked, alarmed.

"Cole happened," he said, exasperated, throwing his legs over the edge of the bed. "Won't he ever learn that there's no need to yell?"

"Where is he?" Piper demanded anxiously. "Is he okay? Can you sense Phoebe?"

"I can sense them both," Leo said, standing up and not bothering to put his shoes on. "But Phoebe seems to be hurt and Cole is completely freaked out."

Piper made a move to grab his arm but he held up his hand, saying:

"I'll just orb there and bring them back home."

With that, he orbed out, leaving his wife to fret until he returned.

* * *

At first, Leo felt that he had orbed right in the middle of Hell. His first unwarned breath caused him to inhale a great amount of black smoke, and he leaned forward, resting his hands on his thighs and coughing painfully, feeling the hot air burn his lungs and bring tears to his eyes.

"LEO!!!!!!!" -- Cole's voice didn't sound inside his head this time, but it came from his left instead, and Leo blindly lumbered in his direction.

"Cole?" he called hoarsely, trying to distinguish his charges through the smoke that filled what he now recognized as an abandoned warehouse on fire.

"Le…" Cole broke into a coughing fit, but Leo had already spotted him, sitting on the ground and cradling Phoebe's unconscious body, and the Whitelighter lost no time in orbing them out of there.

* * *

Piper shrieked in horror when she saw her sister lying limp on Cole's arms. He placed Phoebe on the bed and Leo promptly started to heal her, and Piper noticed that he, too, had severe burnings on his face and arms.

When Phoebe came to, Cole immediately pulled her into a tight embrace, oblivious to the pain as she was pressed against his own burnings.

"I'm sorry, baby," he said hoarsely. "I'm so sorry."

"Shh, baby, that's okay," she said soothingly, while Leo didn't wait for them to pull away from each other and started to heal Cole. "That's okay, Cole, it wasn't your fault."

"What happened?" Piper asked anxiously. "Was it the Daiva?"

"The Daiva is dead," Cole said quietly. Leo finished healing him, and he turned to the Whitelighter. "But there's something wrong with my powers."

The look that Leo exchanged with Piper didn't go unnoticed and he sighed, exasperated.

"I am not just tired," he said. "I'm losing control of my powers. Things that weren't so difficult two weeks ago have suddenly become a challenge."

"Your powers are getting stronger," Leo reasoned. "You need time to adjust to them."

"I don't have time!" Cole snapped. "I almost killed Phoebe today!"

"What happened?" Piper asked again, trying to keep her voice calm.

"It wasn't his fault," Phoebe said. "It wasn't," she insisted when Cole opened his mouth to object. "I threw a fire ball at the Daiva, but it ducked and dodged it, and Cole tried to change the fire ball's course in the air."

"Something that he probably shouldn't be able to do, anyway," Leo chided, raising his eyebrows at Cole. "A fire ball doesn't exactly apply to the laws of physics and you know that."

"It's still fire," Cole said stubbornly. "And I didn't try to change its course: I tried to make the fire grow enough to hit the Daiva."

"And it didn't?" Piper asked.

"It did," he said gloomily. "It hit the Daiva, and it hit the wall behind it, and it hit the ceiling. The whole place turned into hell in the blink of an eye."

"Cole, you had never tried anything like that before," Leo said, "and Benjamin himself said that fire is the most tricky element."

"Something. Is. Wrong," Cole insisted, annoyed. "I can feel it, Leo. My powers aren't getting stronger; they're getting out of control. I…"

"Cole," Phoebe said, alarmed, placing her hand on his arm. The glass of water sitting on the bedside table had been filled with water a minute ago, but now it was completely empty, all the water having boiled and evaporated in a split second. The same was happening to the falling raindrops as they slid down the window, and the air outside was starting to become steamy.

"What the…!" -- Cole's agitation only made it worse, and the falling raindrops were hissing and evaporating as soon as they reached the cloud of steam, until Piper suddenly took a step forward and slapped him hard across the face.

"Ouch!" he yelped both in pain and in shock.

"Piper!" Phoebe exclaimed, stunned.

"I didn't know what else to do," Piper said with an apologizing shrug. "Sorry," she added, gently patting Cole's shoulder.

"Thank you," Cole said, rubbing his stinging face. "I guess."

"Well," Leo said, peering outside through the window. "At least you stopped him."

"Now you agree that there's something's wrong?" Cole said.

"What is wrong," Leo patiently said, closing the window and turning to him again, "is that you won't be able to control your powers if you keep fretting over them."

Cole sighed roughly, running his hands through his hair.

"Have you talked to your father about this?" Phoebe said, taking his hand in hers and squeezing it gently. "If there's someone who can understand what you're going through, it's him."

"He thinks I'm overanxious," Cole unwillingly admitted. "He says I'll get a grip on my powers when I stop worrying so much about them."

Phoebe was about to say that no one knew Cole's powers better than his father did, and that if Benjamin said that everything was fine it meant that everything was fine, but a closer look at her husband's distressed face made her change her mind.

"Why don't you summon him," she suggested helpfully, "and tell him what happened today? I still think that there's nothing wrong with you," she quickly added, "but maybe he knows something that will help you better understand what's going on."

Cole glanced at Leo, and the Whitelighter nodded:

"Go ahead. If not for any other reason than to reassure yourself."

* * *

Twenty minutes later, the four of them were gathered in the attic, standing by the pedestal of the Book of Shadows. Phoebe had just lit the last candle, and she gave Cole a reassuring smile before he started to read the summoning spell with a slightly nervous voice:

"_Hear my words, hear my cry,  
Spirit from the other side,  
Come to me, I summon thee,  
Cross now the great divide."_

Benjamin promptly appeared in the circle formed by the five candles, a broad smile on his face as he answered to his son's summoning spell.

"Well done," he said, proudly, and Cole smiled in spite of his anxiety.

"Hi, dad," he said.

"Hi," Benjamin said. He greeted the others and turned to Cole again: "So, are you just practicing your spells or do you need my help with something?"

"I don't know what I need," Cole started, uncertain, and his father gave him a look of concern. "Dad, something's wrong with my powers. They're feeling…" -- he shrugged -- "weird. Like a garment whose splices are unraveling, it seems that every time I use my powers I rend it a little more."

"Son, your powers are developing quickly," Benjamin said gently, "and it's only natural that you sometimes feel that you're losing your grip on them. You felt the same way at the beginning, then it got better as you learned to control them, and now they're getting stronger and…"

"This is different, dad!" Cole insisted. "I can feel it. I get mad and the water boils, and…"

"Has it happened again?" Benjamin asked, for the first time looking perturbed. "After last week, with, uh…" -- he frowned, trying to remember the vampire's name.

"Spike," Phoebe said. "It happened today, just before he summoned you. Why?" she asked with some apprehension.

"Maybe we should talk," Benjamin said, thoughtfully.

"Thank you!" Cole exclaimed theatrically, throwing his hands into the air.

"Watch your tone," his father chided mildly. Then, turning to Phoebe: "I'd like to know more about that power-stripping potion you told me about."

"It can't be that bad!" she exclaimed, shocked, the hand holding Cole's hand squeezing it tighter.

"I have no intention of taking away his witch powers," Benjamin quickly assured them. "But I'm starting to wonder if maybe there's still something left of his demon powers, something that doesn't agree with his witch powers."

"There's nothing left," Cole said. "Trust me, I'd know."

His father didn't miss the note of yearning in his voice, and he asked gently:

"It still feels strange, doesn't it?"

"Yes," Cole admitted, shrugging. "I thought that unbinding my powers would make the void left by my demon self disappear, but it seems that it only made it more evident."

"I never thought it would come to this," his father sighed. "Your mother and I didn't know what kind of powers you would inherit from us, but we never considered the possibility that your human heritage and your demon heritage might antagonize each other the way they did. I mean, the mere fact that you had a demon self **_and_** a human self…" -- he shook his head -- "I had never heard of anything like that. Demons who are able to assume human form, that's very common, but they're still the same person, the same demon, no matter what they look like."

"It's more complicated than that," Cole said. "Belthazor was still me, but at the same time… he wasn't. It's just…" -- he sighed and shook his head -- "…complicated."

"I could feel her, too, you know?" he blurted. "Mother. It was never as strong as the Source's aura was, but I could tell that she was out there, somewhere." He sighed and added quietly: "Even after all this time, sometimes I still forget and reach out; and there's nothing there, and it's just so… weird."

He cleared his throat and gave them an apologetic shrug.

"But, of course, that's not the point."

Phoebe fondled his arm and the others didn't say anything for a while, until Benjamin said softly:

"There's still a lot of her in you, son. I can see her all the time, in the little things you do, in the color of your hair and in your body language, and in the way you fight." -- he hesitated, biting his lower lip as he watched his son with a pensive expression -- "And when you boil the water."

"What? Mother has no such power," Cole said, puzzled.

"No, she doesn't," his father agreed. "But when she was pregnant with you, and her powers were frenzied by the presence of yours, it happened every time she got upset."

"So," Leo said, cautiously, "what you're saying is, there might still be something demonic about Cole, something that might be rejecting his witch powers?"

"I don't know," Benjamin admitted. "But I do remember my wife saying that she felt… off balance."

He glanced upwards, as if wondering if the Elders were listening before turning to Cole again:

"Son, is there any chance you'd be able to contact your mother?"

"He summoned her once," Phoebe said helpfully.

"I'm not sure it would be a good idea to try it again," Cole said, unsure.

"You did a good job summoning me," his father assured him.

"It's different." -- Cole shifted his weight from one foot to the other -- "Mother hates to be summoned. Most demons do. It's rather… invasive."

"I assume you didn't do much progress with the Elders," Leo said, turning to Benjamin.

"Don't even get me started," Benjamin said with a tired sigh.

"But if she possesses the knowledge that might help Cole, " Phoebe said, "if there's actually something wrong..."

"I'm not saying that there's indeed something wrong," Benjamin said, holding up his hands, "I just want to make sure we're not missing anything."

"Would you like me to talk to the Elders?" Leo asked.

"Tell them not to do anything stupid," Cole said.

"Like what?" the Whitelighter asked, turning to him with a puzzled look.

"Like anything that doesn't include asking my opinion first. I'm serious, Leo; you don't wanna cross my mother. The reason why she's not listed in many Books of Shadows isn't because she is not enough of a threat; it's because there's usually nothing left of a coven after they cross paths with her."

He turned to his father with an apologizing shrug, and Benjamin nodded in silence.

"I'll talk to the Elders," Benjamin said to Leo. "I know that they think I'm blind to my wife's flaws," he added grimly, "so I'm sure they'll take it into account when I warn them against her. And they might know a way for Cole to contact her without having to summon her."

"I'll be back as soon as I have an answer," he told Cole. "Until then, just try and relax."

As Benjamin vanished, his sober expression was somewhat spoiled by the subtle glint of excitement that danced in his eyes at the perspective of seeing his wife again. Cole, too, couldn't deny that he had butterflies in his stomach: he hadn't seen his mother since she had rescued Ben from Julie, two months ago. Also, as much as he tried, he just couldn't remember a time when he had seen both his parents together in the same room. He wanted to see how they'd look at each other, how they would behave, what they would say. Despite his anxiety about his powers and his mixed heritage, Cole was smiling as he and Phoebe started to pick up the candles from the floor.

"I'll start preparing lunch," Piper said. "Phoebe, will you have lunch at home today?"

"Yes," Phoebe said, placing two candles in the drawer. "I only have to be at the magazine at two. And, to be honest, after this morning I'm seriously considering e-mailing my column and not showing up at work at all."

"Are you sure you're okay?" Cole asked, giving her a concerned look as he placed the remaining three candles in the drawer.

"I'm fine," she assured him. "But I feel like taking a nice, relaxing bath, and spending some time with my husband. Not that these two things are mutually exclusive," she added, smiling coyly at him.

"Don't you two have a son to look after?" Leo asked in feign reproach as he placed his arms around Piper to orb her to the kitchen.

"Paige's with him," Cole said, already tugging on Phoebe's hand and pulling her to the door. "She's taking a day off from work."

"Lunch will be served at noon," Piper called as they were leaving the room. "You two had better be here by then, or I might remember that you don't live here anymore and send you to have lunch at your own house."

"Just make sure you cook something with lots of carbohydrates," Cole replied from the stairs. "To replace the ones we'll be burning."

They heard Phoebe giggling while she and Cole hurriedly rumbled down the stairs, and Piper sighed and rolled her eyes as she snuggled with Leo.

"Is it me," she asked, resting her head on her husband's chest, "or are those two impossible?"

"They're impossible," Leo said, smiling against her hair as he orbed her to the kitchen.

* * *

"We should do this more often…" Phoebe cooed, snuggling in Cole's arms.

She smiled when he gingerly pulled up the comforter that had slid from her shoulders with the movement, keeping them both nested in the warm cocoon formed by the covers. They were lying together in bed, enjoying each other's company and basking in the aftermath of their lovemaking.

"Yes, we should," Cole sighed contentedly, all worries about his powers, his parents, the upcoming hearing, the ozone layer and whatnot gone from his mind at the moment.

Phoebe nuzzled his chest, relishing the soft fragrance of patchouli left by the bath salts that had been liberally used in their previous bath, but also, and mostly, the familiar scent of Cole that laid underneath the patchouli. In the back of her mind, she registered the fact that there had been no boiling or freezing or anything magic related when they were making love earlier in the bathtub, and for that she was mightily thankful: not only it would have completely spoiled the mood, but also that would have been one piece of information that she'd rather not share with her husband's parents, thank you very much.

"Then again," Cole proceeded with a smile, bringing her back to the current moment, "we now actually **_can_** do this more often, without Paige banging at the bathroom's door and asking if her hair drier is in there."

"It only happened once," Phoebe said, giggling even as she went to her sister's defense.

"Twice," he corrected her. "One time with the hair drier and another one with the lipstick. And it was twice too many."

Phoebe smiled and rubbed his chest, saying reassuringly:

"It won't happen again. And Ben is still too young to know how to get out of his crib on his own, which means we have a few months to properly inaugurate every room in this house."

"Were you serious about e-mailing your column to Elise and staying home today?" he whispered, leaning down to lightly brush her forehead with his lips. "Cause I think I know just which room to inaugurate next."

Phoebe sighed contently as he let his lips wander, grazing her skin as they made their way to her own lips.

"I'm yours for the rest of the day, Mr. Turner," she purred, and gladly put her arms around his neck when his mouth captured hers for a long, leisurely kiss.

When they parted, Cole rolled to his back again, bringing Phoebe with him so that she was lying on top of him, not ready to make love to her again but unwilling to break the reassuring contact with the warmth of her body.

"I'm thinking of buying Anya's wedding gift later today," she said mildly, resting her head on his chest. "Would you like to come with me to help me pick it?"

Cole ran his hand through her hair, pondering the idea. He didn't spend time in the mall if he could avoid it, but it was a gift for Anya, nonetheless.

"You're not going to use the opportunity to buy yourself a new pair of shoes, are you?" he asked suspiciously.

"No," Phoebe said truthfully. She would use the opportunity to buy **_him_** a new pair of shoes, but why make him suffer in advance?

"What are you thinking of buying?" he asked, and smiled when she made an impatient puffing sound that Ben could mimic to a tee.

"It's no fun shopping with you," she protested. "You want to plan!"

"You are fun," Cole said with a complacent smile. "I'm efficient."

"Well, Mr. I'm-So-Efficient-That-I-Always-Forget-Where-I-Parked-The-Car," she teased, making a face at him, "what are **_you_** thinking of buying?"

"Something pretty," he said, grinning. "Something glitzy."

"Don't you think Xander would rather receive something practical?" Phoebe asked, sliding down from his chest and nestling in the curve of his arm.

"He's marrying Anya; he'll be giving up on practical the moment he says 'I do'," Cole pointed out. "The grass is green, the sky is blue, and Anya isn't practical," he enunciated. "It's a fact of life; Xander will just have to cope."

"How about we compromise? They get something glitzy from us and something practical from your mother?" Phoebe offered, smiling at the thought of an upper level demon sending a dough mixer to the newlyweds.

"It's a deal," Cole said. He lightly nuzzled her temple, knowing that not too many women would be willing to take money out of an already tight budget in order to buy a wedding gift on behalf of a demonic mother in law.

"I just can't picture your mother and Anya hanging out together," Phoebe commented after a while. "I mean, was Anya always so… Anya-like?"

"Yes," Cole said with a smile. "But in her demon days, she was also a power to reckon with," he recalled. "Her business in this realm was usually of the vengeance kind, but when my mother was assigned a mission in another realm the two of them usually worked together."

"My mother is a skilled strategist," he said thoughtfully, lazily running his hand through Phoebe's hair as she snuggled against him, "But Anya's chattering never seemed to bother her, not even when she shooed Sarsour and I out of the room so that she could scheme in peace."

He was silent for a moment, and Phoebe waited while he collected his thoughts, watching the various emotions that flitted across his face as he talked about his mother.

"Do you think maybe Anya could contact your mother?" she asked after a while. "It seems that she still has some connections in the Underworld."

"Maybe," Cole said. "I hadn't thought of that. Do you, too, think that my mother may know something that will help me with my powers?"

"I don't know," Phoebe admitted. "But even if she doesn't, I think you need to talk to her."

Cole gave her a surprised look and she proceeded quietly:

"Even after she rescued Ben, I thought that your issues with your mother were just something that you'd have to cope with, and all I could offer was my love and support. But when your father came back, and later with Anya…" -- she sighed -- "You won't have peace unless you talk to her; as much as I'm not thrilled with the idea of having not just a mother in law, but the ultimate mother in law from hell…" -- she shrugged and gave him a lopsided smile -- "Like Xander, I'll just have to cope."

"That should teach you two not to marry ex-demons," Cole said with a smirk, kissing her forehead. "We come with a lot of baggage."

"Well," Phoebe said, smiling as she rubbed his chest, "I can't speak for Xander, but I happen to think that it's worth it all."

He pulled her close again, burying his face on her hair when she cuddled with him.

"I don't know where I'd be without you," he murmured against her hair.

"Well," she said lovingly, "let's make sure you don't need to find out."

Just then, they heard a knock on the door.

"Is there anyone in there?" -- Paige said through the door -- "There's a little boy here who wants to say 'hi' to his mommy."

Phoebe and Cole smiled at each other when Ben called out from his place in Paige's arms:

"Mama!"

"Mommy will be with you in a minute, muffin," Phoebe said as she and Cole got up from the bed and started to hurriedly get dressed.

"Mama," Ben happily called again, and they could hear his little hands impatiently tapping on the door.

When he decided that mommy was taking too long to come out of the bedroom, he turned to Paige again.

"O'b!" he commanded, making the grown ups laugh.

"Trust me, kiddo," Paige replied, "orbing into your parents' bedroom when they're there alone can be a awful idea."

"Paige!" Phoebe chided, opening the door and catching Ben when he promptly threw himself into her arms. "Hey, there," she cooed, cuddling the toddler. "Did you miss mommy?"

"Mama," Ben repeated, nuzzling her neck. "Ta ta ta ta ta ta," he lilted then, just for the sake of saying it.

"What?" Paige said, giving the unmade bed a knowing look. "It's true."

"Improper nonetheless," Cole said as came out of the bedroom, buttoning up his shirt.

"Less," Ben chimed in, always ready to agree with his daddy. "Leh, leh, le-eh-eh! Less!"

"You seem to be in a very good mood today, young man," Cole said as he took Ben from Phoebe's arms and placed the toddler on his shoulders. "I hope Auntie Paige hasn't indulged you with cookies," he added as the three of them started to walk downstairs, "or she'll find herself in charge of you for the rest of the day."

"LESS!"

"Indoors voice, Ben," Phoebe said while she picked up a small plastic pickaxe that laid discarded on the floor.

"Less," Ben whispered, giving mommy a charming grin that never failed to make her smile.

"That's a good boy," Cole said, chuckling.

"Just like his daddy," Phoebe muttered, shaking her head in feign reproach and reaching out to pick the Cashmere shawl that was resting on the couch.

"Here," Cole said, sobering as he lifted Ben from his shoulders and held him with one arm, reaching out with his free hand for the shawl that his mother had left there two months ago, after bringing Ben back from the Underworld. "I'll take it."

"Mine!" Ben promptly proclaimed when he saw the shawl.

"He's still very fond of it, huh?" Paige asked, arching her eyebrows.

"Yes, he…" -- Phoebe inhaled sharply when she touched the shawl, closing her eyes as the premonition took over her senses.

"Phoebe?" Cole called, quickly moving to her side. "What did you see?"

Phoebe didn't answer right away and just stared at the shawl in her hands, and Cole called again, worried:

"Baby?"

"I saw your mother," Phoebe said, giving him an alarmed look. "She's gonna kill a witch."


	2. Not Bygones

At first, Cole just stared back at Phoebe, feeling as if all the air had been sucked out of his lungs. He had always dreaded this day would come: ever since he crossed, he had lived with this lingering fear in the back of his mind, of the moment when he and his mother would face each other fighting on opposite sides.

"Dada?"

Ben's intrigued voice snapped him out of his stupor, and he immediately called out:

"Leo!"

"Eee-oh!" Ben echoed helpfully, just as loud as his daddy.

"Baby, it was night in my premonition," Phoebe assured him, placing her hand on his arm. "We still have time."

"Time before what?" Piper asked as Leo orbed in with her.

Paige shuffled her feet and Phoebe glanced at Cole before she unwillingly said:

"We need to stop Cole's mother before she kills a witch."

"Oh," Piper uttered, because she really didn't know what else to say.

"You had a premonition?" Leo said gravely. He looked from Phoebe to Cole, knowing that this would be a rather delicate matter, one that he doubted any Whitelighter ever had to deal with before.

"Yes," Phoebe said, gently tugging on Cole's arm to make him sit down. "But it happened at nighttime," she added, taking Ben from his arms when the toddler started to fidget, not pleased with the change from riding on daddy's shoulders to sitting on the couch.

"I could see the moon through the window," she explained as she placed Ben on the floor.

"Doo-doo," Ben warmly greeted the shawl, which was still lying on the couch.

Phoebe watched with a smile as he took "Doo-doo" and went to sit across the room with it, happily prattling with the blue shawl. She sat by Cole's side on the couch, taking his hand in hers and turning her attention to the others again.

"Right," Leo said, cautiously, as he and Piper sat down, too. "So, we still have at least six hours to figure a way to, hum, dissuade her."

"Maybe you should start considering how pissed your mother will actually be if you summon her," Piper reasoned, turning to Cole, "since we may not have time to wait for the Elders' solution."

"It'll help if I know why she's going to kill this witch," he said quietly, running his hands through his hair and trying to sound more confident than he felt. "Phoebe, what exactly did you see? Was there a fight or something?"

"I think there was a fight," Phoebe said cautiously, "even though I didn't actually see it. The girl was lying on the floor, unconscious; I suppose it was your mother who knocked her out, since there was no one else in the room. In my premonition, she was firing an energy ball at her. They were alone in a room that looked somewhat like our attic, but with a larger window and lots of candles around."

She let go of Cole's hand and took a deep breath, breaking all physical contact with the others as she placed her hands on her thighs and closed her eyes; after almost five years, her premonitions had become stronger, and she had learned how to bring the images back to her mind in order to properly analyze them.

"The witch looks very young; sixteen or seventeen, at the most. She placed the candles…" -- Phoebe frowned, with her eyes still closed -- "I don't recognize the pattern, but I can tell that there is one. White and red candles, all over the room. She drew a pentacle on the floor, in the middle of the room, with five big white candles at the corners, and one crystal next to each candle, and…"

Phoebe snapped her eyes open and gave the others an alarmed look as the realization struck her.

"Oh God!…" she uttered, grimacing. "She was trying to summon her, wasn't she?"

"I'm afraid so," Leo sighed. "It certainly looks like she was."

"It can't be, Phoebe," Piper reasoned. "When Cole was still a demon and you and Prue tried to summon him, even the power of two Charmed Ones wasn't enough to force him to come to the manor."

"It wasn't enough," Cole said, "but it put up a good fight. It was invasive and painful, and if I was in the middle of a fight it would have broken my concentration and it might have gotten me killed." He sighed and added: "My mother has killed for much less."

"She looked really mad in my premonition," Phoebe remarked. "I think our best shot is to talk this girl out of it before she does the summoning."

"Then you'd better give us more information about her," Paige said, "so that we can find her."

"Okay…" -- Phoebe closed her eyes again -- "Long, dark hair, average height… Then again, she is lying on the floor, so I could be wrong," she sighed. "It's a large room with parquet floor, and there's a painting hanging on the wall: two flowers -- white lilies, I think -- with a half moon between them."

"Aimee!" Leo exclaimed, paling.

"What?" Phoebe asked, opening her eyes and giving him a confused look.

"She's one of my charges!" Leo said, jumping to his feet. "That's the symbol of the Leclerc coven!"

"Honey, calm down," Piper said as he grew more agitated. "It's still noon."

"Not in France, it isn't," he said, and the others gasped in horror as they understood.

"What's the time difference?" Phoebe asked.

"It's already night there," Leo said, distraught. "I need to go now."

"We…" Piper started to say, but Cole cut her off.

"I'll go," he said, standing up and grabbing Leo's arm. "The three of you stay here."

"You're not going alone!" Phoebe exclaimed.

"If one of you goes," he told her gravely, "someone is going to die there. If I go alone, there's a chance and, God help me, I'm taking it." Then, turning to Leo again: "Let's go."

"No!" Phoebe cried out when Leo promptly orbed out with Cole, and she reached out for the two men one second too late.

"Leo!" Piper called, in vain.

"Should I follow them?" Paige asked, nervously looking from one sister to the other.

"No," Phoebe said after a beat, in a slightly shaken voice. "Cole is right; if we go there now, it's gonna be like a declaration of war: she's gonna shoot first and ask questions later."

"And if we vanquish her, or if she kills one of us, he's gonna be devastated," Piper added with a sigh.

"So…" Paige said, giving them a hesitant look, "what do we do?"

Phoebe swallowed hard, and Piper pulled her to a clumsy hug, holding her as close as her prominent belly allowed.

"Now," Piper said, turning to Paige again, "you call Vanessa and see if she can baby-sit, and then orb Ben to her house. And then…" -- she sighed, fondling Phoebe's hair -- "we wait."

Paige reached out and gently patted Phoebe's arm before she went to follow Piper's instructions.

"We don't know if Cole's mother is already there, honey," Piper murmured soothingly. "Maybe they can stop this girl before she even starts the summoning ritual."

"I know," Phoebe said quietly, nodding her head. "And I hope they do."

She gently pulled away from Piper's embrace and went to sit on the couch, still holding her sister's hand.

"When Benjamin talks about her," she said as Piper sat by her side -- "he makes her look like," -- Phoebe shrugged -- "like just this girl he loves. Sometimes I almost forget that she's a demoness."

"I mean," she proceeded with a sigh, "sure, I know what she is, but Cole, too, was a demon when I fell in love with him. Sarsour is a demon, and I welcome him into our house and let him play with Ben."

"But what I saw in my premonition…" -- she shuddered and gave Piper an anxious look -- "She looked like something that had come straight from hell."

- x x x x x -

If Leo could have heard Phoebe, he would definitely agree with her. When Erzsebet swirled around to face him and Cole, alerted by the telltale chime of his orb, the look in her eyes and the bloodcurdling roar he heard was enough to make the Whitelighter forget that he was already dead, and that no demon could kill him, not without a Darklighter's crossbow. The moment her fiery gaze met his, the energy ball already on her hand, Leo was already orbing out again, out of sheer terror. And, in the end, that first moment of panic saved Cole's life: the energy ball missed the two men by a whisker, leaving a large scorch mark on the wall behind the spot where they had been standing earlier.

As for Erzsebet, there was a split-second lapse between recognizing Cole standing in the way of the energy ball and realizing that Leo had already orbed out with him by the time the energy ball hit the wall with a blast. During that brief instant that seemed to last forever, she saw her worst nightmare come true as she killed her son just like she had killed his father 115 years ago.

She was just starting to recover from the shock when Leo orbed in again; Cole promptly let go of his arm and took a step towards his mother, the urge to stop her before she killed momentarily overcoming prudence. Before Leo could do anything, Erzsebet lashed out towards Cole with a cry of rage, grabbing him by the nape of his neck and yanking him to his knees.

"Do you want to die?" she hissed, her eyes blazing with fury. "Because I can snap your neck, if that's what you wish."

Cole gritted his teeth as her fingernails dug into his flesh deep enough to draw blood, but he had learned long ago that asking for mercy wasn't the way to deal with his mother's wrath.

"I'd appreciate if you didn't," he muttered flippantly. "I'm rather fond of it the way it is."

At first, Erzsebet's painful grip didn't show any signs of lessening. Then she abruptly withdrew her hand and used it to slap Cole across the face, hard enough to make him lose his balance and need to place one hand on the floor for support.

"What's wrong with you?" she scolded angrily. "Shimmering in on me without warning is bad enough, but orbing? Have you completely lost your mind?"

Without a word, Cole painstakingly stood up. He touched his mouth and wasn't surprised to see blood on his fingers; he could already feel his upper lip swell. Yet, if his mother was berating him, he knew that he was standing on safe ground again.

"I was running against time," he finally replied once he was back on his feet. "I had to get here before you killed the girl," he said, glancing at the teenager who lied motionless at his mother's feet.

"How did you know that I… Oh, right," Erzsebet snorted, rolling her eyes. "You married a seer."

"Where's she, by the way?" she asked with a sardonic look around the room. "Didn't her premonition turn this one," -- she motioned her hand carelessly towards the young witch -- "into her innocent? Why isn't she here fighting evil?"

"I'm not here to fight, mother," Cole cautiously said.

He hesitated and his mother sighed heavily, giving him an annoyed look.

"Is this the part where I ask why you are here?" she asked testily. "Because I am not in the mood to follow the script, Cole: I'm tired, I have plans for later, and this little bitch here has already given me a headache. So, if you have something to say, you'd better say it now and then get the hell of out here before I lose what's left of my patience."

"There's something wrong with my powers," Cole started to say. "I…"

"You mean, besides the fact that you don't have any?" Erzsebet snapped.

"The powers I inherited from father," Cole replied tersely.

Despite all the anxiety and the frustration that he had experienced during the last few days, the feelings of inadequateness as he failed to control his powers, the fear of accidentally hurting his loved ones, at that moment Cole almost felt that it was worth it all just for the sake of seeing, for the first time in his life, his mother be rendered speechless.

"I don't think I can help you with that," Erzsebet finally said in a tight voice. "I know nothing about the way witch powers work."

"Father thinks I should talk to you," Cole said, and if he hadn't known her for almost 119 years he might have been surprised that she managed to keep her emotions in check the way she did, a barely noticeable tightening of her jaw being the only visible sign of her shock.

"So, it's true," she said quietly. "You did retrieve your father's soul."

"Yes," Cole replied, nodding.

His mother watched him intently for a while before she finally said:

"I suppose we should talk."

Cole's relief didn't last long, though, as she proceeded, looking at the still unconscious witch and saying offhandedly:

"Let me just finish with this one and then we can leave."

"What!" he exclaimed. "Mother, no!"

"What now, Cole?" she burst out, frustrated.

"Mother, she's just a kid," he reasoned. "You know she represents no threat."

"She summoned me," Erzsebet hissed, any signs of good will she might have shown a moment ago completely gone now.

"I know," Cole said quietly. "And I'm sure that she regrets it already. Mother," he pleaded, "she's so young; I'm sure she's terrified. Leo will talk to her," -- he glanced at the Whitelighter, who was standing a few steps away, deadly worried but knowing that right now there was nothing he could do to help Cole -- "he can make her see that she should never try this again."

"So can I," Erzsebet said coldly, not bothering to acknowledge Leo's presence.

Cole opened his mouth to speak again and flinched inwardly when his mother narrowed her eyes, glaring at him.

"You know that I can't just look away while you kill her," he insisted tensely, sustaining her look. "Damn it, she's just a foolish teenager who probably only stumbled upon the summoning spell by sheer luck!"

"And once word is out that a foolish teenager summoned me and lived to tell the story, any witch with enough brains to put the words of a spell together will think that they're entitled to take a shot, too," his mother snapped back.

"I won't tell," Cole said, feeling a surge of hope as the idea popped into his mind. "And neither will you."

Erzsebet opened her mouth to reply, but he hastily proceeded:

"And Leo understands that his charge's life depends on this remaining a secret. His calling is to protect her, not to vanquish you."

"You know he won't tell," he added, watching her carefully and trying to read her reactions.

Erzsebet didn't say anything and just stared back at him, stone faced, but Cole knew that she was taking in every word, carefully contemplating what he was saying.

"And the witch won't be able to tell," he said, casting a wary look towards Leo, "if she doesn't remember."

Cole knew that this was a huge thing to ask of a Whitelighter, to erase the memory of one of his charges, and he was deeply relieved when Leo silently nodded his head in corroboration of his words.

Erzsebet didn't answer right away, and both Cole and Leo waited tensely as she took her eyes off Cole to look at Aimee, and then all too slowly turned her attention to the Whitelighter, measuring him with a piercing look that went right to his spine with an unpleasant cold shiver.

"I don't have the means to know if he'll erase the right memories," she said, addressing Cole but still watching Leo intently. "Why should I trust him?"

"You trust me," Cole said quietly. "And I trust him."

Without a word, Erzsebet turned her attention back to Cole and stared at him with a cryptic expression; she raised her hand to touch the string of tiger-eye beads hanging from her neck, lightly tugging on it as she pondered his words. Finally, she deliberately took one step away from the girl, and Leo rushed towards his charge and hastily kneeled by her side.

His hands promptly started to glow as he healed the young witch, and the girl suddenly gasped and jolted up with a start.

"Leo?" she said, confused, as she saw the Whitelighter. "Mais…"

_ Leo? But… _

Suddenly she spotted Erzsebet and Cole standing a few steps away, and she let out an alarmed shriek, trying to jump back to her feet.

"Attention!" she squealed, pointing at Erzsebet.

_ Look out! _

"Aimee," Leo quickly said, catching her hand, "non!"

_ Aimee, no! _

"Elle est…" Aimee said, still looking at Erzsebet with terrified eyes and frantically trying to snap her hand free from Leo's grasp.

_ She is…_

"Aimee, attends!" -- he gently but firmly turned her towards him and away from Erzsebet -- "Attends," he said soothingly. "Ne crains pas; tout est bien."

_ Aimee, wait! Wait. Don't be afraid: everything's fine. _

"Mais... mais..." -- Aimee's eyes nervously jumped from Leo to Erzsebet and then back to Leo.

_ But… But… _

"Me fais-tu confiance?" the Whitelighter asked, still holding her hands in his and looking into her eyes.

_ Do you trust me? _

"Oui," she said quietly, giving him a meek look.

_ Yes. _

"Alors viens avec moi," he said. The girl hesitated and Leo insisted: "Tout va être bien. Viens."

_ Then come with me. Everything's gonna be okay. Come. _

Erzsebet watched them in silence, following them with her eyes until they left the room; then she turned to Cole and said coldly:

"If he rats me, you're gonna be so sorry."

"He won't," Cole said quietly, starting to blow the candles out and collect them.

She watched him with a critical expression as he gathered all the candles and placed them in the box that was resting on a nearby table.

"You just never change," she snorted after a while.

"What?" he said, turning to her with a puzzled look.

"You got what you wanted, and yet you still brood," Erzsebet said, shooting him a chiding look.

"I'm not…" Cole started to protest, but he changed his mind and asked snappishly: "Do you understand what I have just asked Leo to do?"

"You gave him the chance to save his charge's life," his mother said coldly. "Isn't that what a Whitelighter's calling is all about? If it wasn't for you, the witch would be dead by now."

"If it wasn't for me, Leo would have brought Phoebe and her sisters to help," Cole retorted angrily.

"And there would be four dead witches by now," Erzsebet snapped back.

"So, now," Cole burst out, annoyed, "you think you can do what every demon before you has tried and failed to achieve?"

"Try me," she growled, narrowing her eyes.

Just then, Leo came back from the other room to find them standing there and glowering at each other; he stiffened, concerned, as he saw Cole defy his mother as if he still had Belthazor's demonic strength. When neither Cole nor Erzsebet showed any signs of acknowledging his arrival, he cleared his throat to get their attention and said:

"She's asleep."

"Is she gonna be okay?" Cole asked, turning to him.

"Yes," Leo said, nodding. "I'll come back later, when her parents are home, to give them a short version of the story, just enough to make sure that they'll keep her under observation for the next few days."

He noticed the box where Cole had put the candles and said, pointing at the shelves behind him:

"This box goes on the bottom shelf; could you…?"

"Sure," Cole said, picking the box.

He placed it on the shelf that Leo had referred to while the Whitelighter gathered the crystals and returned them to the trunk where they belonged.

"Thank you," Leo said. "Here, let me heal you," he said, motioning towards the wounds on Cole's neck.

"No, it's, hum…" -- Cole cleared his throat, uneasily -- "It wasn't…"

"… made by evil?" Leo asked, a little more sharply than he had intended to sound. He regretted his words almost right away, when Cole winced noticeably, whilst Erzsebet didn't even blink.

"Phoebe is gonna flip if she sees the blood," Leo reminded him in a gentler tone.

Erzsebet watched with a cryptic expression as he reached out and healed Cole's neck and face. She didn't say a word until he finished; then, as Leo took a step away from his charge, she walked towards Cole, demanding:

"Let me see it."

"Mother…" Cole started to say, but she gave him a look that left no room for arguments, so he sighed and leaned his head slightly forward, allowing her to gingerly run her fingers over the back of his neck.

Despite his look of resigned annoyance, it was nice and oddly reassuring to feel her touch again. She had always done that, ever since he could remember. Every time he went to her quarters he had to put up with her inspections, as she checked the wounds that she had found the last time and looked for new ones. No matter how long it had been since she had last seen him, his mother could always tell where the previous wounds had been, which ones should have already healed and which ones shouldn't. When she finally retracted her hands, Cole's tone was quieter as he asked:

"Now, can we go to my house?"

Erzsebet sighed and asked:

"Same address?"

"The house next door," he told her. "You'd better follow Leo."

She made a disgusted sound that Leo considered rather offensive and turned to the Whitelighter, saying sharply:

"Just go; I'll be right behind you."

Without waiting for an answer, she reached out and took Cole's hand; when he gave her a surprised look, she asked tersely:

"What? Would you rather orb?"

"God, no!" Cole exclaimed without thinking.

Leo shot him a taken-aback look and Cole said sheepishly:

"Orbing is, hum… okay. It's just…" -- he shrugged, giving the Whitelighter an apologizing look -- "It's not like shimmering."


	3. Birthright

Note #1: Writing an OC is always a challenge, but when a reader refers to the entire Charmed cast as "Ben's family", I think it's fair to say that the author must be doing something write. Shel, I hope this chapter has enough Ben fluffiness for you. :-)

Note #2: Girl version of Chandler, I had to send the Scoobies back to Sunnydale to deal with the First, but don't worry, they'll be back in San Francisco in due time. And, no, I would never make Cole evil again! (or Spike, for all that matters)

Note #3: Everyone else who's been reading, I hope you're still around to read the rest of the story. Thanks for your reviews or, in case you haven't reviewed yet -- I know sometimes I don't -- for keeping the hit counter rolling. :-))))

- x x x x x -

Only when Leo orbed back in to Cole and Phoebe's living room did he realize that leaving Cole behind to shimmer with Erzsebet was a mistake; when he saw the horrified looks of Piper, Phoebe and Paige as they saw him return alone, the Whitelighter wanted to kick himself for his blunder.

Before Leo could explain that Cole was fine, Erzsebet shimmered in with him, and Phoebe flung herself into his arms, snatching him out of Erzsebet's shimmer as she threw her arms around him. The shock of losing connection with his mother's aura in mid shimmer dizzied Cole, and he gasped and instinctively hugged Phoebe back.

"Hey," he muttered, resting his chin on the top of her head.

"Are you okay?" Phoebe asked shakily, still holding him tight.

"Uh-hum."

As Cole felt the world around him come back in focus, it dawned on him what she had thought when Leo returned from France without him, and he grimaced and mentally cursed himself.

"I think I should've had Leo orb me back," he said.

Phoebe didn't answer and he craned his neck, trying to make eye contact with her even as she didn't raise her head from his chest.

"I scared you," he said remorsefully.

"Damn right you did," Phoebe muttered, but she was so relieved to have him come back to her in one piece that she failed to add reproach to her voice.

Cole smiled when she nuzzled his chest and pulled away from him with a sigh. He kissed her forehead affectionately before turning a wary look towards Erzsebet; he knew even before he looked at his mother that she was livid with silent rage.

Before he could say anything, though, Phoebe said, turning to Erzsebet:

"I'm sorry."

Having followed Cole's gaze as he turned to his mother, Phoebe had been somewhat shocked to recognize the blaze behind the demoness' dark eyes as something she could actually relate to. Phoebe knew from experience how intimate shimmering could be, as two souls momentarily merged into the spirit winds and with one another. She remembered the first time Cole shimmered with her, how she had felt nauseous as hell afterwards, and how she had later learned to enjoy those moments of utter intimacy with him. Being a mother herself, Phoebe could imagine how it would feel to shimmer with her son, and the brutal shock of suddenly having him snatched out of her shimmer.

"I should have waited until the two of you came out of your shimmer," she said tentatively. "I… I just…"

"Thought that I had killed him," Erzsebet said flatly, finishing the sentence for her. Then, turning to Cole: "This isn't a social function; what are all these people doing here?"

"They care about me, mother," Cole said, placing his arm around Phoebe's shoulders. "They're trying to figure out what's happening to me."

Erzsebet glanced briefly at the others and flicked her tongue, the idea of consorting with them clearly not appealing to her. Finally, she sighed heavily and turned to Cole again:

"Just start from the beginning."

Cole sat on the couch, taking Phoebe's hand in his, and, after a beat, Erzsebet sat on the stool that was nearest to him, her hands resting on her lap and her back perfectly straight, even though she didn't seem to be making any effort to keep it that way.

"My powers were unbound on December last year," Cole told her as Piper, Leo and Paige took their seats, too, "and father told me about me… us. Everything."

He watched his mother's face for any signs of commotion, but she just stared back at him, and he proceeded, a little disappointed:

"Father has been helping me, teaching me how to use my powers..."

"What are your powers?" Erzsebet asked, interrupting him.

"Same as father's," Cole replied. "Earth, air, fire and water."

"And you've been using them for two months now?"

"Yes," Cole said, nodding.

"So what has changed?"

"My powers…" -- Cole furrowed his brow, trying to find just the right words -- "Lately it seems that they've gone astray; I just can't seem to control them."

"You've gone through the process of learning how to control your powers before," Erzsebet reasoned. "What makes this time different?"

"It just… feels different," Cole said, shuffling his feet. "Wrong."

Erzsebet didn't say anything and just waited as he struggled to elaborate.

"Father told me that when you were pregnant with me, water boiled when you were angry," he said.

"Why?" Erzsebet asked, frowning slightly. "Has it happened to you?"

"Yes," Cole said. "And it's…" -- he, swallowed, instinctively holding Phoebe's hand tighter -- "It's sort of like it's me boiling along with the water. Like the magic is leaking out of me and part of me is oozing out with it."

"Father said that you felt off balance," he proceeded. "That's how I feel: it's like I'm pulled in all directions, and it's all I can do to keep myself together, when I was supposed to be focusing on controlling my powers."

Cole shrugged and looked at his mother in expectation, wishing he could explain it better but not knowing what else to say. He watched her intently as she pursed her lips lightly, seeming to be pondering his words.

After what felt like an eternity for the five people watching her, Erzsebet finally sighed and asked him:

"Are you able to summon your father?"

"Now?" he asked, perking up.

"No," Erzsebet said, checking her watch. "I should already be in Moscow by now." She caught sight of Cole's alarmed look and added coldly: "Not that it's any of your business, but I'm just going to be someone's cover up."

"I'll be back at…" -- she frowned at the watch and cursed under her breath -- "Stupid time zones… Three hours from now, whatever that means."

"Do not use your powers until I'm back," she told Cole sternly; then, without waiting for an answer, she shimmered out.

There was a perplexed silence in the room as they all stared at the now empty stool.

"Well," Paige finally said, "that was very enlightening. Not."

"If I shimmered out on her like this," Cole muttered, frowning, "she'd give me hell afterwards."

Despite the seriousness of the situation, Phoebe couldn't help but smile as she drew her arm through his and affectionately nuzzled his shoulder.

"Do you think she knows what's happening to you?" she asked him. "More important, do you think she'll tell us?"

"My mother does what she wants, when she wants," Cole said with a sigh. "Although I can understand how hard it must be for her to share information with witches," he admitted.

"You're the one who said she'd help rescue Ben," Paige reminded Phoebe. "You were right then; what do you think she'll do now?"

"I think," Phoebe said, carefully choosing her words, "that she'll do what she thinks is best for Cole." She hesitated, then added: "I just wish I could be sure that what she thinks is best for him is the same thing I think is best for him."

"Why don't you summon your father after lunch?" Leo said to Cole. "It won't hurt to know what he has to say before your mother arrives."

"Do you need help with lunch?" Phoebe asked Piper while Leo helped her sister stand up.

"Not really," Piper said with a smile, "but I could use the company."

"Vanessa has plans for the afternoon," Paige told them as she, too, stood up. "Should I bring Ben back home?"

"Yes, please," Phoebe said, tugging on Cole's hand to make him follow her to the manor. She had every intention of keeping her eyes on him until they knew for sure what was happening to her husband.

- x x x x x -

Cole glanced at his watch, his stomach doing flip-flops when he saw that it was already 2:45: his mother should be arriving any minute now. He raised his eyes to meet his father's again, and they shared a moment of silent understanding even as Benjamin kept talking to Phoebe:

"I initially thought that the dandelion would be a problem, but since you also added chickweed to the mixture…"

Benjamin jumped in place and momentarily lost his track of thought when Ben suddenly reached out and patted his calf. The toddler had been sitting on the floor next to his grandfather's chair, very busy putting things in and out of a plastic bucket, when it occurred him to check if today Grandpa Benjamin was being a ghost person like Grandma Patty or a non-ghost person like Grandpa Victor. With Grandpa Benjamin, you never knew.

"Hi!" Ben exclaimed, grinning at Grandpa Benjamin when his hand found the solidness of his leg. _Non-ghost person._

"Hi there," Benjamin said with a smile, leaning towards the toddler and affectionately ruffling his hair.

Then, with the corner of his eye he saw Cole stiffen, and Benjamin perked up, following his son's gaze as Erzsebet shimmered in.

A charged silence fell over the room while everybody pretended not to be watching as Erzsebet and Benjamin stood before each other for the first time in more than a century. Benjamin never took his eyes off of Erzsebet as he stood up slowly, his warm gaze seeming to envelop her, and while she just returned his stare with an unfathomable expression, something on her face got Cole thinking of the mild ripple on the surface of the water when an earthquake occurs in the ocean deeps.

"Hi," Benjamin said softly.

"Hi." -- before Erzsebet could say anything else, Ben startled her by lunging towards her and wrapping his arms around her leg.

"Hi-hi!" he greeted her cheerfully. _I knew you'd come back._

"I see you've already met our grandson," Benjamin said with a smile.

"Once," Erzsebet said curtly, remarkably composedly for someone who had a toddler securely attached to her left leg.

"Well, you seem to have made quite an impression on him," Benjamin remarked softly, looking at the chubby grinning face turned upwards to look at Erzsebet.

"He says 'hi' to anything that moves," Erzsebet deadpanned with a shrug, but she leaned towards Ben and smoothly scooped the toddler up.

"Now," she proceeded without missing a beat, shifting her gaze from Benjamin to Cole, "I suppose you have already brought your father up to date."

Cole had stood up upon her arrival, and he motioned for Erzsebet and Benjamin to sit down before he sat by Phoebe's side again, getting a funny feeling in his stomach at the sight of both his parents sitting side by side on the coach.

"Na-ah!" Ben started to lilt out of the blue. "Nananana…" he happily muttered to himself, toying with the silver bracelet on Erzsebet's wrist and oblivious to the commotion that this particular choice of phoneme was causing among the grown ups. "Na-na-nah! Na-nah..."

A wordless exchange between Phoebe and Cole quickly established that no, he had never taught Ben to call Erzsebet "nana" and, yes, even though they knew that the toddler was very fond of playing with sounds, there was something a tad uncanny about his timing.

Ben snuggled contentedly in Erzsebet's arms, not minding that she hadn't smiled at him, or even looked at him again after she took him in her arms: there were plenty of smiles in the arms that seemed to have been made to cuddle a little boy.

Despite all the love with which Patty, Victor and Benjamin showered their only grandchild at every chance they had, none of them had actually had a chance to be a parent to their own children. They had lost contact with their children during their early years, and thus never had to deal with the discipline issues, the sulky, punishing silences that could frazzle a parent's nerves, the seemingly never ending power struggles with an angry teenager who wasn't above playing the "I hate you" card. And while Ben knew nothing about those things, he somehow understood that Erzsebet, unlike his others grandparents, had already experienced parenthood to the fullest, and now just needed a little push to throw discipline out the window and spoil him silly.

"So," Erzsebet said as she turned to Benjamin, resolutely snapping herself out of Ben's charms, "can you straighten this mess out?"

"I'm afraid I'm still at the part where I try to figure out this mess," Benjamin said, arching his eyebrows.

"What do you mean, try to figure it out? Haven't we already established that he's off balance?"

"It seems I was thrown off by the water boiling episodes and jumped to conclusions," Benjamin said with an apologizing shrug. "After going over the potion that was used to vanquish his demon powers," he told her, showing the sheet of paper in his hand, "I must say it's flawless."

"So?" she said, starting to show signs of impatience.

"His demon powers were entirely vanquished," Benjamin said, giving her a slightly perplexed look, as he clearly didn't know where she was going with that line of thought.

"Benjamin, you're not making any sense!" Erzsebet snapped, causing Ben to stop fumbling with her bracelet and raise his head to give her a surprised look. "Not you," she said evenly, patting the toddler's head. "The other Benjamin."

"'Kay," Ben said as he turned his attention back to the pretty, shiny thingy. There sure was a way to make it come loose: he just had to figure it out.

"I know his demon powers were vanquished," Erzsebet said, turning to Benjamin again. "Why do you think he's off balance?"

"I can see where you're coming from," Benjamin assented, "but his powers were vanquished two years ago and…"

"… and things went downhill from there."

"If Cole's demon powers were entirely vanquished," Leo piped in, unable to refrain himself, "what does it have to do with his witch powers? He's human and…"

"No, he's not."

Leo was so stunned by Erzsebet's statement that it took him a moment to realize that Benjamin had spoke at the same time that she had. He turned to Benjamin, agape, but Cole reacted first and spoke before the Whitelighter could gather his wits.

"I, uh… Excuse me, what?" he uttered, turning to his father.

"Your mother is a demon," Benjamin said, giving him a surprised look. "Why would you think of yourself as human?"

"I am, was half human," Cole stammered, every bit as confused as his father, "because of you."

"And what am I, chopped liver?" Erzsebet asked sourly.

"Half human because of father, half demon because of you," Cole said, shooting her an impatient look.

"Oh, good grief!" Erzsebet snapped. "Get over the half and half thing already! You're not a damned pizza!"

"We've gone through this before, mother," Cole replied in the same tone. "I'm stronger than humans because I'm a demon," he intoned tiredly, like someone who had heard that speech in the past, "and I'm stronger than demons because I'm human. Well, guess what? Right now, I don't feel strong at all. As a witch I can't seem to control these powers that are starting to feel like a borrowed garment; as a demon, I was a danger to Phoebe, and to her sisters, and to the innocents they're supposed to protect."

"So, excuse me if I'm not exactly thrilled about my heritage," he concluded darkly.

Just as Erzsebet opened her mouth to reply, Ben gave the bracelet a particularly strong pull, making her wince.

"May I help you?" she asked the toddler dryly.

"My!" Ben proclaimed tugging on the bracelet again.

"Ben!" Phoebe exclaimed, mortified, jumping to her feet. "He needs to stop with this 'my' thing," she said firmly when Cole attempted to intervene.

"Ben, this is not yours," she told the toddler as she walked around the coffee table and towards him and Erzsebet. "It belongs to…" -- Phoebe hesitated, giving Erzsebet's aloof face a hesitant glance. "It's, uh…"

"Nana's," Benjamin offered helpfully.

"What!" Erzsebet all but shrieked.

"Nana?" Ben echoed, perking up. He liked the sound of it.

"Nana," his grandfather said, nodding and smiling at him.

"What do you think you're doing?" Erzsebet hissed, glaring at Benjamin.

"Nana," Ben said again, tugging on her blouse to get her attention.

"Don't say that," she told him, scowling, but the toddler giggled, amused.

"Nana!" he repeated, enjoying their little game.

"Don't…" -- Erzsebet heaved an aggravated sigh, glaring at Benjamin -- "See what you've done?"

Benjamin arched his eyebrows, giving her an innocent look that was very much like the one his grandson gave mommy and daddy after unrolling all the toilet paper off the roll, and Erzsebet huffed and rolled her eyes, while Cole watched them with something akin to fascination, taking in the dynamic between his parents.

Meanwhile, Ben had turned his attention back to Erzsebet's bracelet; he tugged on it again and whimpered when it still didn't come loose, his lower lip jutting out in frustration in a way that sent a shiver through Phoebe's spine. Earlier that afternoon she and Cole had spent more than an hour taking turns trying to lull the toddler to sleep, but for whatever reason Ben had been adamant about skipping his afternoon nap. Eventually they had caved in and resigned themselves to the fact that by mid afternoon Ben would be a basket case, at least until sleep finally got the best of him for a belated after lunch nap.

Now, Ben's mother gave him a concerned look, quickly weighing the pros and cons of him taking a nap at past 3 pm, while Cole's wife cringed at the idea of her mother in law witnessing Ben throw a full-blown temper tantrum.

"Come here, munchkin," Phoebe said, reaching out to take him from Erzsebet's arms, "you're way overdue to your afternoon nap."

"No," he whined, shaking his head vehemently and clinging to Erzsebet. "No no no no…"

Phoebe took a deep breath and closed her eyes, pinching the bridge of her nose and feeling like crying herself. She always did everything in her power to make sure Ben didn't skip a nap: if he did, he'd be cranky and prone to mood swings that would make any hormone raging pregnant woman look rather apathetic.

"Dada!" Ben suddenly exclaimed, trying to slip from Erzsebet's knees to the floor, and the demoness quickly reached out and helped him down, preventing him from falling.

"Ben, don't," Phoebe said, stopping him as he made a beeline to Cole. "Daddy can't…"

She didn't finish the sentence as Ben stomped his foot on the floor and burst into tears, trying to push her hand away even if he wasn't quite sure where he wanted to go anymore. He was just tired and frustrated and confused, and he wanted to stay here with the others but he also wanted to be somewhere quieter because suddenly all the voices were way too loud and the light was way too bright.

"Let me try," Cole said, standing up.

"Cole, he won't go to sleep without a fight now," Phoebe sighed, tiredly. "And you'll be needed here."

She managed to scoop Ben up, and the toddler stopped crying and even acceded to rest his head on her shoulder before he raised it again with a start, remembering that he didn't want to go to bed.

"No!" he protested indignantly, tears popping in his eyes again. "No, no, no!"

"Maybe we should take a break," Piper offered, knowing that any attempt to take Ben away from his parents now would only upset him further.

Phoebe looked at Cole and he placed his arm around her waist and brought her closer to him, smiling when Ben relaxed and mumbled contentedly in the warmth of his parent's embrace, reaching out a small hand to fumble with his daddy's collar.

"He needs his nap," he said, turning to Benjamin with an apologizing shrug. Then, giving Erzsebet a hesitant look: "Can you wait?"

"No," she said flatly, standing up.

Phoebe's sharp intake of breath didn't seem to bother her any more than Cole's hurt look did, and she walked towards them and reached out for Ben, saying simply:

"Just give him to me and go get everything ready in the nursery; I'll meet you there in five minutes."

"Say what?" Phoebe said, stiffening and holding Ben tighter.

"I don't have all day," Erzsebet said dryly. "He has already missed his nap time; it's not like you'll be able to placate him with a couple of lullabies."

She heaved a heavy, I-can't-believe-I'm-doing-this sigh and explained:

"I'll shimmer around the house with him while you get things ready upstairs, and that'll lull him."

Phoebe's eyebrows shot up as she turned a dumbfounded look from the demoness to Cole.

"It might work," he admitted, giving his mother a curious look. "It, hum, used to work."

"Nana!" Ben suddenly called out, choosing that moment to let go off Cole's shirt and throw himself full force towards Erzsebet, catching Phoebe off guard and almost making her lose her balance.

"We'll be back in a moment," Erzsebet said offhandedly as she took Ben from Phoebe's arms. "In the meantime," she told Benjamin dryly, "see if you can talk some sense into your son, since he clearly won't listen to me."

Phoebe let out a small yelp when Erzsebet shimmered across the room with Ben. As soon as they came out of her shimmer, the toddler looked around, bewildered. _I was there, and now I'm here, but there were no funny blue bubbly thingies._

"O'b?" he tentatively asked Erzsebet, making the demoness drew a sharp intake of breath, her eyes widening in outrage.

"No!" she exclaimed indignantly. "Demons don't orb;" she told Ben, frowning. "Demons shimmer."

"Shim," Ben said, trying out the new word, while Erzsebet arched her eyebrows at Phoebe and impatiently gestured for her to start moving.

As Erzsebet shimmered out again, Phoebe flicked her tongue and headed to the stairs, frowning slightly.

"He'll be fine," Cole assured her, and she stopped at the bottom of the stairs and turned around to look at him.

"I know," she said quietly, nodding her head. She hesitated, then added, grimacing: "But I have a mother in law."

"As you've mentioned earlier today," Cole reminded her with a small smile, "the ultimate mother in law from hell."

As Phoebe sighed and made her way up the stairs, he sat back on the couch, shrugging and giving his father a sheepish look:

"Well, it's true."

"Just don't let her catch you saying that," Benjamin said with a good-natured smile. Then he added, in a soberer tone: "I think we'd better wait for your wife; she seemed quite puzzled, too. Even though," he said, giving Cole a curious look, "I can't possibly understand why."

"I'm afraid we're all pretty confused," Leo said, and Piper and Paige nodded their heads in agreement. "We all thought that the power stripping potion had made Cole human."

"I don't think any potion could do that," Benjamin said. "You see," he explained, "if Cole had been born human, and then turned into a demon…"

"Like a vengeance demon?" Paige asked.

"Yes, that's a good example," Benjamin said, turning to her. "I understand that if you destroy a vengeance demon's power center, they'll become human again. Although I must say I'm not aware of this having ever been accomplished," he added.

"I seem to recall it's been done a couple of times," Piper said, exchanging a look with her sister.

"So," Leo said, scratching his head, "what you're saying is that Cole's still a demon, only without his powers?"

"No," Erzsebet said, shimmering in.

"Is he asleep?" Cole asked as she went to sit by Benjamin's side again.

"Like I said he'd be," she deadpanned, and Piper arched her eyebrows, making a mental note to ask Sarsour if he'd like to baby-sit Melinda once in a while.

"I see you haven't made much progress," Erzsebet said, giving Benjamin a reproachful look, "if they're still asking about humans and demons."

"We were waiting for you and Phoebe," Benjamin said, unabashed. "Meanwhile, why don't you explain to me what you meant earlier about things having gone downhill after the vanquish of Cole's demon powers?"

"Yeah, that," Erzsebet muttered, nodding. "I gave it some thought while I was shimmering around the place, and I reckon you don't know everything that's happened during the past two years."

"Mother, what are you talking about?" Cole said, stiffening.

"You haven't told your father about the Source, have you?" she asked, scowling.

"What about the Source?" Benjamin asked, concerned, just as Phoebe was reentering the room.

"It's a, uh… a long story," Cole muttered, shuffling his feet, holding Phoebe's hand as she sat by his side and slipped her arm through his, "and I don't think it has anything to do with my witch powers."

"Your mother seems to think it's relevant," Benjamin noted, and despite the geniality in his voice there was also a note of resolve that reminded Cole that only a man with a will as strong as his mother's could have stayed married to her for five years.

"It happened a few months after my demon powers were vanquished," Cole unwilling told his father. "The Source attempted to destroy the Charmed Ones by unleashing the Hollow."

"What!"

"My words exactly," Erzsebet muttered.

"But that's insane!" Benjamin uttered, flabbergasted, turning to her with an incredulous look. "It's… it's more than insane; it's nearly suicidal."

"I know that, you know that," Erzsebet said dryly. "Intellectually challenged trolls high on yak urine know that. Too bad the Source never asked our opinion."

"Dear God…" Benjamin sighed, shaking his head. "So, what happened?" he asked her, gathering his wits.

"I don't know," Erzsebet admitted with a shrug. "I only saw the final outcome."

"The Source had already stolen the powers of Piper and Paige," Cole explained as Benjamin turned to him again, "and we knew he'd be coming for Phoebe's powers next. So, when the Seer offered me the chance to take in the Hollow and…"

"What?" -- Erzsebet's deceptively composed voice cut the air like a whiplash, and without thinking Benjamin reached out and placed his hand on her arm.

"Let him finish," he said, his brow furrowed as he watched Cole in shocked concern.

"I didn't ask for it," Cole said in a tight voice. "I never wanted it." -- Phoebe rubbed his arm reassuringly and he cast a grateful glance towards her -- "But it was the only way to stop the Source. I didn't know what else to do, and I never thought things would turn out the way they did."

"And how exactly did things turn out?" Benjamin asked, looking oddly short of breath for a man who had been dead for more than a century.

Cole swallowed hard, trying his best to remain detached and just state to the bare facts, to block the memories of how it had actually felt that night and during the ensuing months. Phoebe's hand was still resting on his arm and he reached out for it, his fingers intertwining with hers as she gave his hand a gentle squeeze.

"The void left by my demon self allowed the Source to survive his vanquish," Cole quietly proceeded. "His powers were absorbed by the Hollow when I was hit by one of his fireballs, and so was his essence when Phoebe and her sisters read the vanquishing spell. But when the Hollow was banished back to his crypt…"

"The Source remained with you," Benjamin finished the sentence for him. He sighed and was silent for a while, looking like a man who had been punched in the head. His hand was still resting on Erzsebet's wrist, but neither one seemed to notice it as they took in the meaning of Cole's words.

Cole looked at his mother and he was shocked to see that she, too, looked stunned, staring at the coffee table before her with a blank expression.

"Mother…"

"I told you to beware the Furies," Erzsebet said darkly, suddenly acknowledging Benjamin's touch and snapping her hand away from his. "I told you that necromancers are unreliable allies. I taught you how to recognize the breeds of dragons whose flesh is poisonous to our kind. But it never," she proceeded, glowering at him, her voice rising just the slightest notch, so subtly that he doubted the others even noticed it, "ever occurred me that I needed to warn you against the dangers of taking in a voracious, insanely powerful, magic consuming being."

"He did what he thought was best," Benjamin uttered in a low voice. Erzsebet shot him an angry look and he sighed. "I'm not saying that it was indeed the best thing to do. It was reckless and unwise," he said, giving Cole a pointed look, "but men wiser than I am have been guilty of making poor choices at the spur of the moment."

Benjamin reached out and affectionately touched Cole's arm, the thought of what his son had put himself through causing his voice to waver a little as he added gravely:

"But please, son, don't try that again."

Cole swallowed hard and silently nodded his head, painfully conscious that his desperate attempt to save Phoebe's life had nearly cost him his soul, and Phoebe's and Ben's as well, had he chosen not to take them out of the Underworld when he did. Also, it had ultimately granted the Source a few more months to spread evil through him. Cole gave his father a tentative look, and Benjamin patted his arm, saying gently:

"I'm just glad you're fine."

As if sensing Erzsebet's scowl, he turned to her again, flashing her a small smile that was gradually making his way back to his eyes as he willed himself to relax, reminding himself that his son was indeed safe and sound now.

"He was possessed by the Source of All Evil; I reckon grounding him now would be quite an anti-climax."

Erzsebet huffed in annoyance, but she relaxed her stance a trifle, and Cole blinked, astonished; for a second, he could have sworn that his mother was biting back a smile.

"So," she said, turning to him, "now that we've established that all your problems started when you lost your demon powers, can we proceed?"

"Okay," he said, nodding. "Why don't you start by telling me, once and for all, what I am?"

"O seventh, eighth and ninth circles of Hell!" Erzsebet snapped, throwing her hands into the air. She turned to Benjamin, and said, exasperated: "There's only so many times I can have this conversation: you talk to him now."

"Be patient with him," Benjamin said with a small smile, "stubbornness runs in both sides of his family." Erzsebet glared at him and he added: "And, if truth be told, this is the first time that Cole is faced with his heritage in its wholeness."

"I know that you want a name," he said, turning to Cole again, "a word that will establish your identity and explain your heritage. I'm afraid I can't give you one, though; all I can say is that you're the son of a witch and a demoness, no more no less. The features that you have inherited from me are intertwined with the ones you've inherited from your mother, and they can't just be isolated like you would boil salted water to separate the salt from the water."

"Just this morning you thought that the problem with me was that what was left of my demon's self didn't agree with my witch powers," Cole reminded him.

"This morning I was under the impression that the vanquishing of your demon powers hadn't thrown you off balance," Benjamin said, arching his eyebrows. Cole shuffled his feet, uneasy, and he asked gently: "Why didn't you tell me before, son?"

"I embraced evil for one hundred and fourteen years," Cole sighed, toying with Phoebe's fingers as he held her hand in his. "Crossing over was…" -- he grimaced, rubbing his temple -- "tough; and when I lost my powers, things became even worse. I just assumed," he said quietly, "that I had to try harder. That there was a part of me that still longed for evil, that simply didn't want to adjust."

"After more than a century of evil," Benjamin said understandingly, "I don't think crossing over could possibly be easy. But what you went through was more disrupting than just that. I mean," he said, turning to Phoebe, "no offense, but…"

"What do you mean, no offense?" Erzsebet protested, cutting him off. "Yes offense! It's a miracle she didn't kill him, just because she couldn't be bothered to learn her craft before meddling with things that she didn't understand."

"Phoebe only did what I asked her to do," Cole said tersely.

"You're a couple," his mother said acridly. "That means you're supposed to take turns in being stupid; if you both decide to act like morons at the same time, who the hell is steering this ship?"

"Don't talk about her like that," Cole warned her, frowning, causing his mother to draw a sharp intake of breath.

"Are you trying to tell me what to do?" she growled.

"It's my wife you're talking about, mother," Cole said firmly.

He stiffened on his chair and set his jaw, bracing himself for an explosion, but his mother's response got him off guard as she narrowed her eyes, glaring at him, but didn't retort.

"Very well," she finally said in a low voice. "Then I suppose she should be filled in all there's to know about you, so that she can stop you next time you're intent on pulling a boner."

She stared hard at him, as if daring him to tell her that she wasn't supposed to talk about him like that, either, but Cole chose to stop while he was winning and leaned back on his chair, saying simply:

"I suppose she should."

"Which leads me to my next question," Benjamin said, his look encompassing the others as well. "Are you following this so far?"

"A witch is a human being with magical powers," Leo said slowly, as he digested what he had heard up until that moment and added it to what he already knew. "If you take away a witch's powers, you'll have a man or a woman who'll never fulfill their destiny and who will probably go through life yearning for what they lost, but it won't affect their balance."

"But Cole's not human," he proceeded, scratching his chin, as Benjamin nodded his head, encouraging him to go on. "Nor is he a demon. It seems his powers have a greater significance to him that those of a thoroughbred human do."

"Or of a thoroughbred demon, for the matter," Benjamin said. "Cole's balance resides in his having both his demon powers and his witch powers."

"What about when I still had my demon powers but my witch powers were bound?" Cole asked.

"They were bound, but they were there," his mother said. "It wasn't enough to disrupt your balance significantly."

"What do you mean, not significantly?" Phoebe asked.

Erzsebet hesitated for a split second, as if she was about to snap at Phoebe for daring to address her, but she finally answered in a semi civil voice:

"I could feel this ripple in his aura every time I shimmered with him. But eventually he learned how to counterweigh it, and he reached a point of balance."

"So, now he just needs to learn how to counter balance the lack of his demon powers as well?" Phoebe asked hopefully.

"I'm afraid not," Benjamin said.

"Balancing his powers is essentially how he balances his mixed heritage," Erzsebet said. "And he can't do that if there are no powers there to balance."

"What about a potion? " Piper asked, concerned. "Or a spell? Something to make up for what he's missing?"

"I don't think it's safe," Leo said, scratching his head. "You'd need dark magic for this."

"What? Do you think evil is what I need?" Cole asked, giving him an upset look.

"It seems that you need a demonic power," the Whitelighter replied. "And white magic can't create a demonic power."

"The powers can't make you evil," Benjamin assured him. "It's all about the use you make of them."

"The Slayer's powers are rooted in evil, too," Paige piped in, "and that doesn't make her evil."

"Yeah," Cole reluctantly agreed, still not thrilled at the idea. He shifted on his seat, uncomfortable, the memory of taking in the Source's powers still painfully vivid in his mind.

Despite the urge to fix his balance, he was almost relieved when his mother shook her head, declaring:

"It doesn't matter, because it wouldn't work. This is not merely about some demonic power and some witch power," she proceeded as the others looked at her.

"You were conceived on the autumnal equinox," she told Cole, "born of a demon brought forth in the witch's moon and a witch whose powers were rooted in the elements."

"Witch's moon?" Phoebe asked, arching her eyebrows.

"What's an equinox?" Paige asked Leo at the same time.

"It's one of the two times of the year when day and night have the exact same length," the Whitelighter explained.

"As for the witch's moon," Benjamin told them, "the Celtic year was once divided into thirteen lunar months, one for each full moon during the year. The fifth moon was called Willow Moon, Witch's Moon or Moon of Balance."

Phoebe closed her eyes and rubbed her temples; vanquishing Cole's demon self had looked like such a perfectly good idea at the time! He was off the Source's radar, free to start a new life as a human. _Except that he isn't human, is he? He's some very special and unique magical being whose highly refined balance you screwed royally._

She looked at Leo and the grim look on the Whitelighter's face told her that he, too, wished he had known more about his future charge, thus being able to give her better advice then. Phoebe took a deep breath and straightened up, determined not to let these dark thoughts stop her from helping her husband here and now. There'd be plenty of time later, for all of them to acknowledge their well-intentioned mistakes and learn from them.

"So," she said, resolutely turning to Erzsebet, "what does Cole need?"

"He needs his powers back," the demoness replied curtly.

"Can we restore them?" Phoebe insisted, ignoring the antagonism in her voice.

"You can't," Erzsebet said. "And you needn't."

She formed an energy ball in her right hand, skillfully making it revolve around itself as it hovered above the palm of her hand.

"There's more where that came from."


	4. Power Thirst

"I have heard about switching powers," Benjamin said, giving Erzsebet an intrigued look. "But never about sharing them."

"I know it can be done," Erzsebet said as she closed her hand, making the energy ball vanish. "I just don't know how," she admitted. "Figuring out this kind of stuff, that's your thing."

"I thought knowing deadly boring facts about physics was my thing," he said good-naturedly.

"Yes, that, too," she said without missing a beat.

"So," Cole said, looking at his father, "you think it can be done?"

As Benjamin turned to Cole, he couldn't help but smile at the eager look in his son's eyes. He didn't miss Cole's reaction to the idea of receiving his mother's powers, as opposed to any generic demonic power.

"If your mother says it can be done, it can be done." he said simply. "And if it can be done, we'll find a way."

"Do you really think this is the right thing to do?" Leo asked cautiously. Erzsebet gave him a dirty look, but he refused to acknowledge it and stood his ground.

"In more ways than one," Benjamin replied. "These aren't just the powers Cole needs; they are the powers he's entitled to."

"Mind you," he added, looking at Erzsebet, "I'm still not sure how we're going to do this."

"Again," she said imperturbably, "not my problem. I'm chipping in with the powers."

Piper frowned in concern as she saw Leo shuffle his feet uncomfortably. She knew that normally Cole would take the Whitelighter's opinion into account, but between watching his parents' interplay and dealing with the perspective of receiving his mother's powers, he wasn't paying as much attention to the reactions of the rest of the family as he normally would.

"Leo, what's wrong?" she asked.

"Not wanting to be a wet blanket," the Whitelighter said when all eyes turned to him, "but what will happen when they both start using the powers they'll be sharing, one for good and the other for evil?"

When Erzsebet promptly turned to him for an answer, Benjamin felt a lump in his throat. Would she switch sides again if he told her that it was the only way to help Cole? But even as he wondered what she'd do Benjamin knew that this was a pointless question: he had never lied to her before, and he wasn't about to start now.

"If we do it the right way," he assured the others, "Cole is going to be just fine."

"And if we don't…?" Phoebe asked warily.

"If we didn't **(don't)**," Benjamin told her, "it would only make things worse." He hesitated a little before elaborating: "Eventually, the conflict would tear one of them apart… and I believe it would be much likely to be Cole."

"You seem quite confident that we can do it the right way," Leo noted.

"I don't want to start anything before we study this matter carefully," Benjamin said, "but the more I think about it, the more I believe that we can do it right, in a way that's safe for all the parties involved."

Cole straightened on his seat when he heard the last statement, and he wasn't surprised when his mother reacted the same way, shooting his father an intent look: the day his mother failed to read between the lines would be a rather cold day in hell.

When she didn't say anything, though, Cole asked:

"Why would it present a risk to mother?"

"It won't," Benjamin said. "I'm just anticipating her objections."

"To what?" Erzsebet asked, raising her eyebrows.

"You'll have to release your powers before Cole takes them," Benjamin told her gently.

He sighed when she inhaled sharply, stiffening on her seat.

"You'll get them back afterwards, of course," he assured her. "It shouldn't take more than…"

"I will not render myself powerless," Erzsebet said coldly. "And I'll definitely not do it when every witch within the Elders' reach could be orbed here faster than you can say deathtrap."

"You won't be vanquished in my own house," Cole protested. But even as he said it he felt something akin to deja vu, a cold, sickening feeling at the bottom of his stomach. He gave his mother an uncertain look and his eyes widened as he saw her exchange a glance with his father.

"They would never…" -- he turned to Leo for reassurance -- "They wouldn't, right?"

"I'll talk to them," the Whitelighter said, "and explain what we want to do and why we want to do it. They may not agree," he warned him, "but if they do, they'll know that we'll need your mother's help for this, and they'll keep their side of the bargain."

"Leo, this isn't just about not sending someone here with a vanquishing potion," Cole told him gravely. "No one else can know about this: what my mother is doing here would be considered high treason. Even without a Source, she'd be…"

"Are you even listening?" Erzsebet said sharply, cutting him off. "I don't care what the Elders say; I don't care what he" -- she pointed at Leo -- "says. I don't believe them, period."

"Then we won't tell them," Phoebe said decidedly. "No one leaves the room until it's done; this way you'll know that no one's telling."

"That wouldn't be wise," Benjamin said. "I don't believe you'd be able to perform such a powerful ritual without the Elders sensing it, and if they feel something but don't know what we're doing they'll be very likely to send someone here to find out what's happening."

"But this is **_my_** house!" Cole exclaimed, shocked. "They can't just…"

"Yes, it is," his father said patiently, holding up his hand to silence him. "But if you fire a gun in the living room the neighbors might call the police to investigate. If we try to hide this from the Elders," he proceeded, "they'll sense something big, but they won't know if you're vanquishing an entire clan of upper level demons or mistakenly opening a portal to the inner circle of Hell."

"If the Elders agree to this," Leo assured him, "it will mean a truce. We won't have to worry about them sending some well-intentioned but biased witch here at a pivotal moment." -- he gave Erzsebet a pointed look -- "They'll be bound to their word."

Dead or not, it took all the Whitelighter had not to cringe under Erzsebet's piercing look, but he managed not to look away until she finally turned to Benjamin again.

"Are you sure there isn't another way?" she asked, watching him intently.

"There isn't a safer way."

"Then start working on a relinquishing spell," she said curtly. "Before I come back to my senses and call this whole thing off," she snapped when no one moved.

"I'll go get the Elders' approval," Leo said, standing up, "and see if they have some suggestions. In the meantime, why don't you check that spell that you used to get your powers back from Cryto?" he reminded Piper.

"On your way back," Benjamin said just before the Whitelighter orbed out, "would you mind bringing the Book of Shadows with you?"

"That's okay, I'll get it," Paige said, standing up, too.

"How did you…" -- Benjamin gave her a surprised look before he understood what she meant -- "Oh! No, I meant **_my_** Book of Shadows. Just ask the Elders for it," he explained to Leo.

"Your Book of Shadows?" Piper echoed.

"Cole's Book of Shadows, actually," Benjamin corrected himself with a smile.

"Cole has a Book of Shadows?" -- Paige turned to Cole, but he just shrugged.

"Oh, for crying out loud!" Erzsebet exclaimed, exasperated. "You," she commanded, pointing at Leo. "Turners' Book of Shadows. You," -- she pointed at Paige -- "Halliwells' Book of Shadows. The rest of you just sit around and gape to your hearts' content."

She huffed and rolled her eyes while Leo and Paige orbed out; Benjamin eyed her mildly, but before he said anything to her Cole requested his attention:

"I have a Book of Shadows?"

"Sure," Benjamin said with a smile.

"And why is it with the Elders?"

"It was taken from our house on the night I died," Benjamin explained, "and it's been waiting for you since then."

"It's been more than a month since Cole's powers were unbound," Phoebe pointed out. "Why didn't the Elders let him have the Book of Shadows before?"

"They did," Benjamin said. "I was the one who wanted to take it slow."

He looked at Cole, who was just sitting there in silence, scratching his chin.

"I have a Book of Shadows," he muttered, still looking perplexed.

"To think of all the time that you lost trying to steal ours, huh?" Piper said jokingly, causing him to crack a smile.

"So," Benjamin said, turning to Phoebe, "this, uh… Cryto, right?"

"Demon of vanity," Phoebe said, nodding.

"**_That_** Cryto?" Erzsebet said, arching her eyebrows. "He was skinned alive back in the sixteenth century."

Phoebe opened her mouth to reply, but suddenly Erzsebet's attention was drawn to Paige, who had just orbed in carrying the Book of Shadows.

"Here it…" -- Paige involuntarily took a step back when Erzsebet gazed at the book in her arms with the cold, intense eyes of a predator.

"Mother," Cole warned her.

"Force of habit," she said sweetly.

"Cryto was brought back to life a few years ago," Piper said, motioning for Paige to sit by her side, on the furthest seat from Erzsebet, "by a group of witches who planned to steal our powers and give them to him in exchange to their youth."

"Which worked all very well for maybe a couple of hours, and then Cryto had to say good-bye to yet another skin," Phoebe added dryly, giving the demoness a pointed look.

"Aw, that's gotta hurt," Erzsebet said flatly. "If I cared, I'm sure I'd be really impressed."

"So, the spell that you used to get your powers back?" Cole said, anxious to divert the conversation to safer waters.

"Here," Piper said, dexterously flipping through the pages of the Book of Shadows until she found the spell that they had added after the vanquishing of Cryto.

"Powers of the witches rise," Paige read out loud. "Well, I'd say it'll need a few adjustments."

"Do you mind if I take a look?" Benjamin asked, interested.

He stood up from his place on the couch and went to read over Piper's shoulder.

"I believe it's a good starting point," he muttered, thoughtfully, looking at the spell, "but we'll need something else to strengthen the spell. You don't easily separate an upper level demon from their powers, even if they are willing to collaborate."

"There was a potion, too," Piper remembered. "They put something in the iced tea they gave us, but we never found out what it was."

"I'm sure we can come up with something," Benjamin said confidently. "Also," he warned them, "we must make sure that the process is slow enough for you to be able to stop before it goes too far. A demon's very existence is only possible due to magic," he explained. "If you deprive Erzsebet of all her powers you will vanquish her."

"Well, there's something I've been working on," Phoebe said, "It's a side spell to add to Power of Three spells and give them an extra boost," she explained, "and ironically the slowness is actually a side effect that I've been trying to resolve, but I think it may be just what we need now."

"The thing with all the triplets?" Cole asked.

"I knew you were paying attention!" she cooed.

"I tried ignoring you at first," he told her, "but it didn't work."

He grinned when Phoebe made a face on him, but before she could retort they heard the chiming sound of Leo's orb, and Cole promptly turned around on the couch, his eyes widening slightly as he saw the ancient looking book the Whitelighter was holding.

"I believe this is yours," Leo said with a smile as he handed the book to him.

Cole hesitated slightly before he received the book from the Whitelighter's hands, looking at it with near reverence as he gingerly placed it on his knees. When the pages suddenly started to flip by themselves, though, he hastily raised his hands, almost dropping the book.

"I hate when they do that," he muttered when the pages settled, glaring at the book and warily lowering his hands.

"This isn't English," Phoebe noted, stretching her neck to read the entry.

"It's Latin," Cole said, giving the book an intrigued look.

"What does it say?" Benjamin asked.

"Bona rerum secundarum optabilia; adversarum mirabilia," Cole read. "Did you write this?" he asked his father.

"No," Benjamin said. "But it does sound familiar."

"It sounds like Stoic School to me," Erzsebet piped in.

"Now that you've mentioned," Benjamin said, looking at her, "I think it's Seneca."

"Yeah," Cole said, looking at the entry again, "me too. But the point is, why is our Book of Shadows quoting Seneca?"

"Probably because he was wise man," Benjamin said with a smile.

Before Cole could reply, Phoebe cleared her throat to get their attention.

"I hate to interrupt when the three of you seem to be on a roll with the quoting and everything, but, uh…" -- she motioned her hand, encompassing herself, her sisters and Leo -- "some of us don't speak Latin."

"Sorry, baby," Cole said with an apologizing smile, placing his hand on hers. "It says," he told her, pointing at the entry that sat alone on the open page, "that while the good that come from prosperity is something to be wished, the good that comes from adversity is..." -- he hesitated and looked at his mother -- "to be wondered at?"

"I was going with 'admired'," she said, shrugging, "but, yes, 'wondered at' sounds more like it."

"And I'm not arguing with this," he said, turning to his father again, "but this isn't a spell, or a potion, or anything that I would expect to find in a Book of Shadows."

"Who is this Seneca, anyway?" Paige asked.

"A Roman philosopher," Benjamin told her, "who lived in the first century."

"Well," Piper reasoned, "strangers things have been added to our Book of Shadows."

She flipped the pages of the book Paige was holding until she found the entry she was looking for.

"Here," she said, placing her finger beneath the entry and motioning for Cole to come closer.

"Sometimes a baby just has to cry," Cole read. He raised his eyes from the book to give Piper a perplexed look.

"Aw!" Phoebe cooed. "Matthew…"

Cole turned to her, puzzled, and she explained:

"He was one of our very first innocents. Six months old and already cursed," she sighed, shaking her head.

"Anyway," Piper said with a smile, getting the conversation back on track, "my point is, you can find all kind of stuff in the Book of Shadows."

"That said," Phoebe said as Cole sat by her side again, "how did the Elders react, Leo?"

"They're not exactly thrilled," the Whitelighter said cautiously, fully aware that this was the understatement of the century, "but they'll trust Benjamin's judgment on this matter."

"And that's all?" Phoebe asked, disbelievingly.

She was clearly upset and Leo gave her a surprised look.

"I'm glad that they're giving us the okay to do this," she explained, "but when did the Elders become all non-interventionist? It just sounds like they're washing their hands," she said, frowning.

"They're not," Leo assured her. "They listened to everything I told them about Cole's heritage, and they agreed that it all makes sense, but…" -- he gave an apologetic shrug -- "Cole is indeed one of a kind. The Elders are pretty much making it up as they go, just like we are."

"Speak for yourself," Erzsebet said coldly. "What?" she asked when Benjamin arched his eyebrows at her. "**_I_** know what I'm doing; it's not my fault if they don't."

"You don't know how we're doing this," he reminded her.

"I know what we're doing, and I know why we're doing it," she retorted. And then, surprisingly, she relaxed her antagonizing stance and actually gave him the tiniest smile. "That makes three things out of two, but you just figure out the hows of it and we'll call it even."

Benjamin hesitated for a moment, just staring back at her, and then he cracked a smile.

"You have got yourself a deal, ma'am," he said affably, his smile widening as her own smile vanished just as quick as it had come, but not before it flickered briefly in her eyes.

- x x x x x -

One hour later, Cole felt the beginnings of a headache stirring; he grimaced and rubbed his eyes while his father, Piper and Phoebe discussed spells and potions and rituals with great enthusiasm. The two Books of Shadows lay open on the dinner table, amid several sheets of paper covered with drafts and formulas and magic symbols and, God help him, second grade equations.

He glanced at Paige and sighed: she hadn't said much so far and was mostly listening to the more experienced witches, but she seemed to be following the discussion pretty well, which was more than he could say about himself. In order to strengthen the spell, they were going to use Echinacea roots, but that would unbalance the spell towards earth, and now Phoebe was rewriting the spell while Benjamin and Piper discussed whether they should grind the roots or just burn then while the spell was cast, and what the frigging hell difference would it make, anyway? Cole shuffled his feet uncomfortably: he felt like a bright twelfth grader attending a class intended to college seniors.

He sighed and looked around the room: Leo was back in France, giving Aimee's parents an abridged version of his latest visit, and shouldn't be back for a while. Cole looked at his mother, sitting on a chair next to him, keeping her distance from the Books of Shadows and watching the discussion with a neutral expression.

"Would you like some water?" he asked her in a low voice, leaning back on his chair and towards her.

"What?" -- she gave him a surprised look -- "No."

"Coffee? Anything that'll give me an excuse to leave this room for a while?"

Erzsebet arched her eyebrows, giving him a curious look, and he shrugged.

"Water will be fine," she said, and Cole concealed a sigh of relief as he stood up and headed to the kitchen.

- x x x x x -

"Not so much into the craft?" Erzsebet remarked offhandedly, receiving the glass Cole was handing to her.

"I'm still finding my way around," he admitted, leaning back on the counter. "What they're doing there…" -- he motioned with his hand towards the dining room -- "It's so out of my league that I don't even know what sport they're playing."

"All the talk about a witch's powers being tied to their emotions." -- he sighed, shaking his head -- "You don't know what it is to have your powers coming from your gut unless you've been a demon for a hundred years…" -- his mother raised an eyebrow -- "or a lot more."

"This magic," he proceeded, "witch's magic, it's just so different from what we know. It's not so much something that you train as it is something that you learn by study."

"You've learned Aristotelian logic," Erzsebet pointed out, placing the empty glass on the island between them. "You've learned Latin and Greek and Mandarin, and asymmetric warfare, and tax law. It certainly can't be worse than tax law."

"You know," Cole said, "tax law isn't really all that difficult once you've learned the basis of…" -- he trailed off as he noticed the look on his mother's face -- "Yeah, shutting my mouth now."

They were silent for a while until Erzsebet said:

"There's a part of you that's actually craving for this, for the wicca thing, with the spells and the magic formulas and whatnot. You just can't see it now because you're so damn screwed up."

As she started to walk towards the door, Cole asked her:

"Do you think they can pull it off? This ritual they're working at?"

"Your father can," she said without looking back. "He always can."


	5. Powers of This Demon Rise

Cole watched as Phoebe intoned the words of the cloaking spell while gingerly pouring poppy seeds on the floor, drawing a large circle around his mother. Erzsebet was standing in the middle of the attic of the Manor, with her arms crossed in front of her chest and a look of steely determination on her face as she stared straight ahead. Cole sighed; he couldn't blame her for looking grim when she was about to place herself at the mercy of the Charmed Ones.

"So," he asked Piper in a low voice, not wanting to disrupt Phoebe's spell, "are you sure that this will be enough to prevent the ritual from being sensed in the Underworld?"

"If someone tunes in while we're performing the ritual," she said, "they may sense powerful magic, but not the specifics of it."

Cole nodded in silence, still frowning slightly, and Piper cast him a curious look.

"Cole we've cast all kinds of spells through the last years and Evil never stirred. Why should it be different now?"

"My mother's powers…" -- Erzsebet shot him a warning glare from across the room and he shrugged -- "are rooted deep."

Before Piper could reply, Phoebe placed the jar with the remaining poppy seeds on the top of a dresser, announcing:

"Cloaking spell, done." She hesitated, glancing at Erzsebet, and added: "We're all set."

"What am I supposed to do?" Erzsebet asked dryly.

"Just stand there and don't fight the spell," Piper told her, entering the circle with Phoebe.

"Now remember what we've talked about," Benjamin reminded them as Paige joined her sisters. "Keep your eyes on the lantern," -- he pointed at a brass lantern sitting a few feet before Erzsebet -- "and stop when it lights up."

Paige held a pottery bowl full of ground Echinacea roots, and after each sister took a handful of powder out of it she gave the bowl to Leo to put it aside.

"Hear now the words of the witches, the secrets we hid in the night," the sisters started to chant in one voice, "The oldest of gods are invoked here, the great work of magic is sought."

Cole watched tensely as his mother stiffened, like a fox hearing the hounds at the distance. Even if he knew that Phoebe and her sisters meant her no harm, it still looked for all the world like a vanquishing, and he hated it just as much as she did.

"We're the strength of the cave bear," Paige intoned, throwing some powder at Erzsebet's feet.

"We're the wisdom of the whale," Phoebe said, following suit.

"We're the bravery of the eagle," Piper finished.

"We're three," they said in unison. "We're one. Earth, sea and sky."

"Powers of this demon rise, course unseen across the skies, come to us who call you near, come to us and settle here."

Erzsebet shuddered and inhaled sharply. Her face was ashen, in painful contrast with her raven hair, as she started to glow with a dark yet surprisingly sparkly luminescence.

"Past," Piper said, throwing more powder at the demoness' feet.

"Present," Phoebe said.

"Future." -- when the powder cast by Paige hit the floor, the shadow surrounding Erzsebet started to creep from her to the lantern.

"Once passed along, later on lost," they chanted. "We summon it again, to restore destiny's course."

"Powers of this demon rise, course unseen across the skies, come to us who call you near, come to us and settle here."

Just as Phoebe raised her hand to throw more powder, the lantern lit up and Cole and Benjamin hastily said in one voice:

"Enough."

Erzsebet swayed on her feet and Benjamin quickly moved towards her, but Cole was faster as he rushed around the girls and towards his mother.

"Mother?" he called worriedly as he approached her.

"Weak," she mumbled faintly, and he reached out and grabbed her arms above her elbows, catching her when her knees buckled. His mother was a petite woman, no taller than Phoebe, but Cole often forgot this as he was faced with the power of her aura, and it always surprised him to realize how light she was.

"It's okay," he said gently as she leant against him, grabbing the front of his shirt for support. "It's okay, I got you." He carefully positioned himself between her and the others, knowing how much his mother hated to show weakness.

"You should lie down now," Benjamin said, giving her a concerned look.

When Cole tried to lead her towards the nearest divan, though, Erzsebet shook her head, standing her ground with unexpected forcefulness considering her drained look.

"I don't need to lie down," she declared through colorless lips.

"Mother…"

"No," Erzsebet said adamantly. She started to pull away from him but quickly changed her mind when the world around her blurred and swirled. "I'll be fine," she insisted nonetheless. "I'll be fine; just give me some time."

Cole sighed and looked at his father over her head, silently asking for his help. He had once seen his mother lead a successful raid against a coven of six witches sporting two cracked ribs and a broken ankle, just so that word didn't get out that she was wounded.

"Just sit down until your head clears," Benjamin compromised and, after a moment of hesitation, Erzsebet nodded her head in agreement, letting the two men walk her to the divan.

"I feel like I'm going to throw up," she grumbled as Cole gingerly helped her sit by Benjamin's side.

"It's okay, we don't care much about this couch anyway," Cole quipped, smiling as she grunted and closed her eyes, acceding to rest her back against Benjamin's chest.

"Maybe you shouldn't have gone through this with an empty stomach," Piper offered as she approached them.

"Well, thank you for thinking of this **_before_** you started the ritual," Erzsebet said wryly, keeping her eyes closed.

"Can I get you something to eat now?" Cole asked.

"You can get me my powers back now."

Cole glanced at Phoebe, who was sweeping up the powder and the poppy seeds while Paige picked up the lantern and gingerly placed it on the dresser.

"One hour," Phoebe said in response to his non-asked question. "There's peppermint iced tea in the fridge," she added, looking at Erzsebet. "It should help settle your stomach."

"Do you need some help over there?" Cole asked, giving Phoebe and uncertain look.

She did, but he was so visibly unwilling to leave his mother's side that she didn't have the heart to say it, so Phoebe just shook her head with a smile:

"I'm almost done, anyway."

"I'll go get that iced tea," Paige volunteered, glad to have an excuse to leave the demoness' presence for a moment. Even without her powers -- most of them, anyway -- Erzsebet still held an aura of might that was rather unsettling when combined with the antagonism that she made no effort to hide.

"Erzsebet…" Benjamin started to say, but she cut him right off.

"I'm not talking to you right now. This," she crabbed as Benjamin's eyebrows shot up in surprise, "may not be as bad as a vanquishing spell, but it definitely ranks a close second."

"I'm sorry," he said gently, smiling at her. The color was already returning to her face, but Erzsebet didn't make an effort to pull away from him even as she slightly cranked her neck to shoot him a sour look. "The worst part is over, though," he told her. "We'll need to let the powers rest for one hour, and by then you should be feeling strong enough to go through the second part of the ritual. Which," he quickly assured as she grimaced, "I'm sure you won't find as unpleasant as the first part."

Erzsebet just huffed by way of response, but her expression wasn't so harsh as she asked, still addressing Benjamin but this time looking at Cole:

"So, can we both get our powers then?"

"Like it was meant to be from the beginning," Benjamin said with a smile.

"Like it was before they meddled," Erzsebet corrected him pointedly, and Benjamin sighed.

"You're not even trying to be nice," he gently reproached her.

"I can either be nice or be honest," she told him petulantly. "You can't have it both ways."

Before Benjamin retorted, Paige orbed in holding a glass of iced tea. She hesitated and handed it to Erzsebet, and the demoness accepted it without a word.

"Thanks," Cole said to Paige while his mother took a tentative sip of the iced tea.

Erzsebet gave him a pointed look and for a moment seemed to be about to snap at him for thanking the younger witch on her behalf. But the spell had left her spent and she didn't feel like starting a fight right now; plus, her upset stomach did indeed feel a little better, so she just drank some more iced tea and leaned back on Benjamin with a sigh.

- x x x x x -

The Power Broker stopped dead in his tracks; the hand he had raised to store a demonic power in yet another innocent suddenly froze in the air. He inhaled deeply, shuddering as he took in the intensity of the powers he was sensing. Ancient dark magic, the kind that you could only find in a few upper level demons.

"What…?" -- his partner, an ambitious Chameleon who was trying to rise in rank, gave him a puzzled look.

"Shh!" -- the Power Broker acknowledged the Chameleon's presence just enough to hold up an impatient hand to silence him.

"The carrier…"

"Let him go," the Power Broker hissed, his eyes glazed over as he focused on the powers, trying to track them down. Some upper level demon must be being vanquished not far from where they stood, and any witch -- most probably witches -- powerful enough to take down such a strong demon ought to be approached with extreme caution.

The Chameleon impatiently shifted his weight from one foot to the other, watching as prudence and greed fought for control in the mind of the more powerful demon. The Power Broker swallowed hard without even noticing that he was salivating: he had heard of magic like this, black magic that was rooted in the darkest recesses of the nether realm, but he had never been near it, let alone grasp it. He **_had _**to have it.

"Come on," he told his partner. "You'll provide diversion, and I'll make us both rich." _On a 70/30 basis._

- x x x x x -

"Feeling better?" Cole asked his mother as she handed him the empty glass.

"Yes," she sighed. "But not as good as I'll feel when this is over. Has it been an hour yet?"

"Twenty minutes," he said with a smile, checking his watch. "Would you…" -- he never finished the sentence as her stance changed subtly, her eyes suddenly becoming sharp and alert as she straightened up on her seat.

"Benjamin, go check on Ben," she said in a calm but curt tone, not looking at him as she thoroughly scanned the room.

"Be careful," Benjamin said simply before vanishing.

"Cole…?" Phoebe said nervously, understanding that there was only one thing in which both men would so blindly trust the demoness' instincts, and it didn't mean good news.

"Piper…" -- before Cole could tell Piper to freeze the entire room, Erzsebet pointed an assertive finger towards the further corner of the room.

"Chameleon," she said, and Cole cursed inwardly. How on earth were they going to figure what was out of place in this mishmash of an attic?

"Just blow everything up, Piper," Leo said, and as Piper raised her hands towards the objects that piled up on the corner of the attic, their bluff was rewarded by the sight of a dollhouse morphing back into a Chameleon.

The demon waved his hand towards Piper, sending her staggering backwards against the divan. While Piper tumbled on the divan, bumping heavily into Erzsebet, Phoebe threw a fireball at the Chameleon, but he quickly ducked to dodge it.

"Phoebe, that was mine!" Piper protested when the fireball destroyed the sewing machine.

"Well enough to bitch, well enough to fight," Erzsebet barked, impatiently shoving Piper back to her feet. "There's another one there."

"Book of Shadows!" Paige called out, while Piper quickly froze the small fire that Phoebe had started and the others turned in the direction Erzsebet had pointed in time to see the smoke surrounding the Power Broker vanish.

While Phoebe hesitated, not wanting to set the room on fire with another misdirected fireball, the Chameleon started to raise his hand again, but the empty glass that Erzsebet had snatched from Cole's hand flew across the room like a missile and hit him squared between the eyes, knocking him out.

Meanwhile, Piper turned her attention to the Power Broker just as he was firing an energy ball at her and at the group huddled around the divan. Leo jumped towards Piper, but Erzsebet was quicker as she grabbed her by her arm. She shimmered out with Piper while Cole lurched out of the way of the energy ball, knocking Phoebe and Paige to the floor with him, and poor Leo found himself alone to face the energy ball.

"Someone vanquish him already!" Erzsebet shouted in frustration as she shimmered back in a few feet away, with Piper in tow.

The Power Broker faltered, momentarily blinded by the explosion of blue orbs that filled the attic as the energy ball hit Leo with a blast, and Piper waved a weak hand towards him, still fighting the nausea caused by the shimmering. The demon froze in the act of raising his hand to throw another energy ball, and Piper placed her hand on the wall for support, leaning as much forward as her belly allowed her before throwing up.

"Leo!" Cole called out while Phoebe jumped back to her feet, throwing a fireball at the frozen demon.

"I'm okay," Paige said, sitting up and rubbing her bruised elbow as the blue orbs gathered again to materialize a still slightly dazed Leo.

"He's not," Erzsebet said curtly, grabbing Leo's arm and yanking him away from Paige and towards Cole.

"What…" -- the Whitelighter didn't finish the sentence and drew a sharp intake of breath, his head immediately clearing at the sight of Cole's calves, burnt almost to the bone by the scrape of the energy ball. The back of the legs of his pants was gone, and the smell of burnt flesh made Piper gag again.

"Cole!" Phoebe shrieked, kneeling by his side just in time to catch him as he collapsed face down.

"He's in shock," Erzsebet informed tersely, her expression unreadable as she looked from Cole's ashen face to Leo's glowing hands.

They watched in silence as Leo used his powers for what felt like an eternity, his lips pressed tightly together as Cole's mangled flesh slowly reconstituted over his bones.

"Wait," Phoebe said softly when Cole came to with a grunt and tried to prop himself on his elbows. "Leo's hasn't finished yet," she told him, placing her hand on his shoulder to keep him down.

"Did I just pass out?" he asked, giving her a slightly disconcerted look as he rested his face on her thigh.

"Life on the surface has softened you," his mother remarked evenly, reaching out and gingerly wiping a few droplets of cold sweat from his forehead.

"Okay," Leo finally said, retracting his hands and sitting on the floor with a sigh.

"That was close," Piper said as she found her voice again, swallowing hard.

"Way too close," Phoebe concurred in a shaking voice, hugging Cole as he sat up.

"Job hazard," he joked without much conviction, snuggling her and kissing the top of her head. "Are you okay?" he asked, looking at his mother.

"I'm…" -- Erzsebet's eyes widened as the thought hit her like a blow; she swirled around, turning to the other side of the room.

"Where are my powers?"


	6. Stronger Than Humans

"Where's the other one?" Piper asked alarmed, staring at the pieces of the shattered glass scattered on the floor, just where the knocked out Chameleon should have been.

"What do you mean, where's the other one?" Erzsebet asked sharply, her head whipping toward Piper. "Wasn't **_anyone _**watching him?"

"I, uh…" -- Piper looked at Phoebe, who gave her an apologetic shrug, motioning towards the scorched remains of the Power Broker. The two sisters turned to Paige, who in turn looked at Cole, and he sighed and scratched his chin, getting a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach as he saw his mother's eyes actually manage to turn a darker shade of black.

"Leo, go get my father," he said with deliberate calmness. "Mother," he called civilly as the Whitelighter orbed out, feeling a chill run down his spine as she turned around to look at him with eyes that seemed void of emotion.

"Your wife and in laws lost my powers," his mother remarked in a quiet, almost nonchalant tone.

"We're gonna find that Chamel…" -- Phoebe's voice trailed off when the demoness' hard look turned in her direction, and Cole placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder, even though he didn't feel all too assured himself.

Before things got worse, though, the sound of Leo's orb came from the baby monitor, followed by Ben's cheerful greeting, and it momentarily drove Erzsebet to distraction.

"What the hell?…" she uttered, giving the baby monitor a perplexed look.

"It's a baby monitor," Cole told her, glad to see her attention focus on something other than their major blunder. "It helps us keep track of Ben when he's in another room."

"Is everyone safe?" they heard Benjamin ask Leo, making Cole wince and wish the Whitelighter had thought of turning off the baby monitor.

"Can they hear us?" Erzsebet asked, grabbing the monitor and frowning as Leo briefed Benjamin on the outcome of the attack. They could hear Ben's voice in the background, impatiently demanding to be orbed out of the room.

"It's a one-way device," Cole explained, but his mother wasn't paying attention any more as Benjamin's alarmed voice came from the monitor:

"What do you mean, they have gone missing???"

"What does anyone mean by 'gone missing'?" -- Erzsebet glared at the baby monitor, heedless of its one-wayness. "Orb down there," she snapped at Paige, "and have those two get their dead asses up here right away."

- x x x x x -

Fifteen minutes later, they were all gathered in the attic, sitting on an assorted mix of seats that went from a slightly wobbly barstool on which Paige was precariously perched to a loveseat where no one had dared to join Erzsebet.

"Do you think someone's spying on us again?" Paige asked, frowning. "Because, come on, what are the odds that a Chameleon would just happen to barge in while we were performing the ritual?"

"Well, we know that this one wasn't sent by the Source," Phoebe reasoned, reaching out to stop Ben from sticking a blue crayon into his mouth. "Draw something pretty for mommy, sweetie," she said, pointing at the sheet of paper that rested on a folding table, before the armchair where she was sitting with the toddler. "I mean, there isn't a new Source yet, is there?" she asked, giving Erzsebet an uncertain look.

"There's no Source," the demoness concurred curtly, staring grimly at the crystal that Paige had used to try and scry for her powers. Having remained uncooperatively still despite Paige's best efforts to tap on Erzsebet's magic, the crystal now lay discarded on top of the world map.

"The reason for that Chameleon to be here could be virtually anything," Cole told Phoebe and Paige. "Chameleons aren't exactly specialized manpower: they're lower level demons who can be hired to do all kind of minor jobs."

"So, it seems that, right now, the genome project crew over there is our best chance," Phoebe sighed, motioning towards Piper, Leo and Benjamin, who were gathered around the desk, analyzing the ashes of the vanquished Power Broker.

She rescued yet another crayon from sure death in Ben's mouth and shook her finger at the toddler:

"I know they're pretty but they're not candy. Are you hungry, munchkin? Do you want a banana?"

"No," Ben declared, vigorously shaking his head. "Nana!" he suddenly exclaimed, trying to wiggle out of Phoebe's arms and to the floor.

"Ben, nan… uh, she's, she's busy now," Phoebe said, struggling to rein the toddler.

"No, she's not," Erzsebet said wryly. "She's just sitting here wishing she hadn't gotten out of bed this morning."

Phoebe gave her an unsure look and the demoness stood up, throwing a dark braid over her shoulder with an impatient shrug.

"Nana!" Ben gleefully called out again when he saw her walk towards him, and Phoebe sighed and allowed Erzsebet to take him from her arms.

"Now," Erzsebet said as she walked back to the loveseat, looking for all the world like a woman who did not have a burbling toddler in her arms, "finding out who the second demon was won't bring my powers back."

She shifted Ben to her hip and gestured towards Piper, Leo and Benjamin with her free hand:

"What they are doing there is only one means to achieve a goal, said goal being to find that Chameleon while he's still in possession of my powers. There must be other means, and we are going to try them all."

She sat on the loveseat again, with Ben happily snuggled in her arms, and proceeded, turning to Cole while taking off the bracelet that had caught Ben's eye earlier that afternoon:

"You'll have plenty of time to learn the rules of their game later. Right now, I need you to play the game that you know."

"Here, keep yourself busy," she said, handing the bracelet to Ben and causing the toddler to squeal in delight.

"I'm not a tracker, mother," Cole sighed with a touch of impatience.

"You're a predator," she replied coldly.

Cole pursed his lips, not pleased with her choice of words, but his mother dismissed his discontentment with an impatient wave of her hand and went on, unabated:

"A tiger can't change its stripes, Cole; whether you'll use your skills for good or for evil is up to you, but nothing will change the fact that you and me, we're hunters."

Cole stared at her in silence, frowning slightly as he weighed her words. Then he stood up without a word and went to place his chair before the loveseat, straddling it and resting his crossed arms on its back as he looked at his mother.

"Lower level demon, of a breed known by its cowardice, way out of his league here," he summoned up.

"Injured albeit mildly, carrying a very powerful magic device that I'm guessing has no immediate use for him," his mother followed suit. "Where did he go?"

Cole flicked his tongue, contemplating this, and Phoebe piped in:

"To rejoin his pack?"

"No," Cole muttered pensively, shaking his head. "Chameleons are loners."

"But I can see where she's coming from," Erzsebet pondered. "Oddly enough," she quickly added.

As Cole gave his mother an interrogative look, judiciously pretending not to notice her unwilling acknowledgement of Phoebe's contribution, she proceeded:

"He needs a safe place where he can lay low while he gathers his wits and figures his next move."

"His kind doesn't like to take chances," Cole muttered, nodding his head. "He went back to the Underworld."

"Where?" Erzsebet asked, keeping her eyes at Cole even as she caught the bracelet that Ben had dropped in mid air and returned it to the toddler.

"Aa dunnorya?" Cole suggested tentatively. "Your powers wouldn't cause much of a ripple when he shimmered in there with them."

"Upper level demons' territory," Phoebe clarified to Paige in a whisper.

"The powers wouldn't, but a lower level demon in Aa dunnorya?" -- Erzsebet flicked her tongue in scorn -- "He would stand out like a cur in a lions' den."

"There aren't many areas in the Underworld where your powers would go unnoticed," Cole noted.

"The Kev'anee is pretty much no man's land," his mother reminded him. "Anyone and anything can go unnoticed there, as long as they know how to hole up."

"If he's bleeding, the crocottas will smell him before he even places both feet on the ground," Cole pointed out.

"The glass might have shattered when it hit the floor," his mother reasoned. "I threw it from a pretty bad angle; I don't think it hit him hard enough to draw blood."

"Well, there's only one way to find out," Cole said, standing up and heading towards the pieces of the glass.

"So," Phoebe asked tentatively, looking at Erzsebet, "what's a crocotta?"

"A beast that infests the Kev'anee," Erzsebet said, not bothering to look at her and keeping her eyes on Ben as she prevented him from rolling down her knees in his efforts to stick an already bare foot into his mouth.

"Looks like a big, ugly dog and reeks like a hyena," Cole added from his place knelt by the broken glass. "And is far more vicious than either of them."

He stood up, turning to his mother again:

"It seems you still can throw one hell of a pitch." -- he walked back to his seat, stopping only to pick Ben's discarded shoes -- "Must've broken the skin just above the eyebrow line, judging by the amount of blood."

"What's this Kevin-what's-his-name place?" Paige asked Phoebe, but she just shrugged in response.

"If we were talking geography," Cole explained as he sat down, "Kev'anee would be the outskirts of the Underworld."

"We're not talking geography?"

"The Underworld's territories aren't like the states of a country," Phoebe told her. "They're more like these sub-realms inside the realm."

"So, he's not at the Kev'anee," Erzsebet said impatiently, eyeing Cole. "Then, where?"

"The atmosphere in the Barshas is pretty charged as it is," Cole said as he sat down again, "with all the sorcerers' and alchemists' activity. The disturbance caused by your powers might not attract attention."

"Not in Dah Barshee, though," his mother pondered.

"Too scantly populated for his taste," he concurred, nodding his head. "He needs to mingle."

"He's in Sh'a Barshee," they both said in one voice, and as Cole said the words he knew it was true; he knew it in his guts, just like he knew that he was damn well going to hunt that Chameleon down.

"Sheeeeeeeeeeee!" Ben gleefully exclaimed out of the blue, throwing one of his socks up into the air.

"Don't be so excited," Erzsebet told the toddler evenly, catching the flying sock in the air and helping him out of the other one. "Sh'a Barshee is a rather big place."

"Yeah," Cole muttered pensively. His mother threw the two little socks at him and he caught them out of reflex, his mind clearly somewhere else as he turned a thoughtful look toward the discarded crystal.

"Why can't we scry Sh'a Barshee?" he asked.

"Because I don't even know what it is?" Phoebe said, raising her eyebrows.

"There are two Barshas," he told her, standing up and dropping Ben's shoes and socks on the folding table. "Both of which are inhabited mainly by sorcerers, alchemists, runecrafters and the likes."

He walked to the table on top of which the world map and the crystal were and stared pensively at it.

"The Dah Barshee is the high Barshee, and the Sh'a Barshee is the low Barshee. But we only need to scry the Sh'a Barshee."

"You want to scry the Underworld?" Erzsebet asked, giving him a curious look.

"As people keep reminding me," he said with a small grin, "I'm a witch. Witches scry."

"I don't think any witch has ever scried the Underworld," Paige muttered.

"I don't think any other witch has been raised in the Underworld," Cole reminded her lightly, taking the crystal by the string to which it was attached and watching as it rotated slowly around itself.

"Baby, you're gonna need a map," Phoebe pointed out.

"Did you keep the wrapping paper that came with the fish tank?" he asked her. "That should be big enough."

"Do you think you can draw a map by heart?" she asked, arching her eyebrows.

"I can mark the approximate location of some key points and name them," he told her. "I think it would be more important than the precision. What they say about there being power in a name, it's not just poetic license."

"The paper is in the trunk at the foot of my bed," Piper said, keeping her eyes on the potion she was stirring.

Cole gave Phoebe an interrogative look and she shrugged:

"Between me and Piper, who did you think would be more likely to save wrapping paper?"


	7. Stronger Than Demons

Ben mumbled contently to himself as he covered yet another sheet of paper with purple scribbles. He put the paper aside, once again casting a longing glance at the giant drawing Daddy and Nana were making: they hadn't let him draw with them, and that was wrong, because you were supposed to share. Mommy always said so.

"That's pretty, sweetie," Mommy said with a smile as she placed another piece of paper in front of him. She was sitting on the floor by his side, but Ben knew that she, too, would like to draw with Daddy and Nana because she kept peeking at their drawing. And yet she always knew in advance when he was about to put a crayon in his mouth. Ben sighed. Life was tough.

"If the lesser elemental summoning pool is here," Erzsebet said, pointing at the map, "and the smithies are here, then the plague brewers should be somewhere around here."

"The more I learn about the Underworld, the less I want to know about it," Paige muttered, grimacing.

"Maybe the more sensitive souls would rather draw with your son while we work," Erzsebet said wryly, handing a pink crayon to Cole.

"You don't like the plague brewers either," Cole pointed out evenly. "And I'm not drawing in pink," he non sequitured, not taking the crayon from her hand.

"You asked for a different color to mark the brewers' location."

"Well, now I'm asking for a different color that isn't pink," he said. His mother eyeballed him and he added stubbornly: "It's **_my_** map and it's not going to be pink."

Erzsebet sighed heavily as she dropped the pink crayon back into the box.

"Here," she said, offering Cole another crayon. "Royal blue: virile enough, I hope."

"Thank you." -- he refused to acknowledge her sarcasm and turned his attention back to the map, that now covered the whole extension of about six hundred square inches of wrapping paper.

"I still don't understand how you can remember the location of all these places," Leo remarked, watching the map with great interest, "and yet you can never remember where you've parked your car at the mall."

"Same reason why you know what the names and the powers of all your charges are," Cole replied lightly, keeping his eyes on the map, "and yet you can't remember the names of Piper's cousins for the life of you."

He straightened up and massaged the sore muscles of his neck, grunting as his back expressed its resentment for the time he'd spent on the floor, bent over the map.

"Wandering about the parking lot looking for my car is a nuisance," he told the Whitelighter. "Taking a wrong turn in the Underworld could get me killed."

"Still," Paige pointed out, "you haven't been to any of these places in at least two years."

"You have memories of your childhood," Cole sighed. "That was twenty years ago. I have memories of mine; that was a century ago. My mother remembers the Black Death; different life spans, different memories."

Just then, the Turner's Book of Shadows came to life, getting everyone's attention as its pages started to flip by themselves.

"What is that?" Erzsebet asked, frowning.

"It seems that we have identified one of the demons," Benjamin announced, watching with interest as the pages gradually started to settle down. "The one Phoebe vanquished."

"It also seems that my Book of Shadows beat yours to it," Cole said slyly to Paige as he stood up to go see what was written in the book.

Paige made a face on him, but before she could retort the pages of the book came to a rest, and she promptly stood up, too, eager to know the demon's identity.

"Oh." -- Benjamin didn't say anything else, but his tone alone said volumes and Cole quickly closed the gap between him and his Book of Shadows.

"What now?" Erzsebet asked testily.

"That would explain their timing," Piper muttered, staring at the entry.

"What?"

"Egon," Cole sighed, rubbing his face, "comes from a long line of Power Brokers."

He didn't have to look up from the Book of Shadows to know that the loud cracking sound he heard was a crayon being snapped between his mother fingers.

"A folk that also happens to dwell in the Sh'a Barshee," Erzsebet said grimly.

"But Egon was vanquished," Phoebe pointed out. "Can a Chameleon also be a Power Broker?"

"That's unheard of," Cole said. "But possible, I suppose."

He turned his eyes back to the Book of Shadows, studying the entry with a pensive expression.

"This Egon seems to have some renown as a Power Broker," he remarked. "I can easily see why the Chameleon would want to tag along with him."

"But why would Egon want to associate with a Chameleon?" his mother finished the thought for him, absently fingering Ben's hair as the toddler abandoned his drawing and went to nestle on her lap.

"Cannon fodder?" Piper offered.

"Probably," Cole said, nodding his head. "And if so, Egon was most likely the one with all the connections. The good news is that, without him," he proceeded, walking back towards the map, "the Chameleon will probably have a hard time finding a buyer for the powers. Power Brokers can be rather bigoted."

He gingerly picked up the map from the floor and placed it on the table where the world map had been.

"Can't he just sell them to the final customer?" Phoebe asked while she collected the crayons and placed them back into the box.

"Would you buy a purse from someone who knocked at your door claiming it was Prada?" Erzsebet asked flatly, standing up with Ben in her arms and going to join Cole by the map.

"So," she said to Cole without waiting for Phoebe's answer, motioning with her chin toward the map of the Underworld, "how does this work?"

"Hum…" -- he frowned slightly, staring at the crystal in his hand -- "Piper?"

"Is there any blood left?" Piper asked from her place by the two Books of Shadows.

"No." -- he had wiped the crystal clean of his mother's blood as soon as Paige gave up on scrying the world map: upper level demons could never be too careful with their blood.

"Where is the athame?" Erzsebet asked. "Go stay with your mother while we do this," she told Ben as she handed him back to Phoebe, "lest you start having ideas."

She held out her hand and Cole made another cut next to the one that had been done to draw blood for the first scrying.

"Hold the end of the string," Piper instructed Cole after he smeared his mother's blood over the crystal, "and hang the crystal above the map."

She placed her hands on the arms of her chair and pushed herself up with a small grunt.

"Keep in mind that you're not actually doing anything here," she told him as she approached the map. "Don't try to guide the crystal: just focus on what you're scrying for and let magic work."

"You know I hate it when you say…Hey!" -- Cole watched, perplexed, as the crystal quickly traveled to the upper left corner of the map but, instead of settling down, started to move in circles around one spot. "What's it doing?"

"Is the Chameleon running in circles?" Paige asked, intrigued.

"At this speed? No way." -- Cole shook his head -- "He would be going from the poison wells to the summoning pool and back in a few seconds. That is, what?" -- he looked at his mother -- "Fifteen yards?"

"I have absolutely no idea," Erzsebet said, frowning at the crystal, "but definitely too distant to be possible."

"What is at the center of the circle?" Benjamin asked her, standing by her side and watching the crystal with great interest. It was twitching and pulling at the end of the string, yet it never changed its course in what looked like a geometrically perfect circle.

"Not much, if memory serves me," Erzsebet said. "Cole?" she called, giving him an interrogative look. "I recall you spending a lot of time at those parts back in the 1930s, to see that blue skinned wench, what was her name? Darla? Marla?"

"Mara," Cole said curtly when his frantically risen eyebrows didn't shut her up.

With the corner of his eye he could see Phoebe purse her lips; he sighed and turned his eyes back to the map, for now avoiding eye contact with his beautiful, loving, prone-to-start-an-argument-over-something-that-had-happened-before-even-her-mother-was-born witch of a wife.

"If you leave the wells and walk this way," he said, pointing in the crystal's general direction with his free hand, "you'll soon find yourself in the middle of nothing. It's imps' territory, and while it's convenient for the sorcerers to have them nearby, no one in their right mind would try and make a potion or perform a summoning ritual with a bunch of imps bustling around."

"Okay, so this could be why the Chameleon chose this place to hide," Piper pondered. "But why can't the crystal find his exact location?"

"Maybe it **_has_** found his exact location," Benjamin uttered, scratching his chin. "It just can't reach it. If you ask me, it looks like the area is magically shielded."

"By a Chameleon?" Cole said, raising a skeptical eyebrow. "It would take much more power than any Chameleon…"

He stopped mid-sentence as realization sank in, and his mother bitterly voiced his thought:

"Except that this particular Chameleon currently has enough power to shield the entire state of California. It seems he did learn a trick or two from Egon, after all," she added grimly.

"Is he using your powers to conceal himself?" Piper asked.

"I have no such power," Erzsebet sighed, shaking her head. "But you can bet he is tapping on my powers to pull this off."

"We need to wait until he lowers the shield," Cole sighed, running his hand across his face. "We're never gonna break through it. Not in the Underworld, not with white magic."

He stared at the map in silence for a while before giving his mother a sideways look:

"If I say I'm sorry about this mess, you're gonna punch me, aren't you?"

"Damn right I will," she deadpanned, with her eyes still trained on the crystal and its accursed trajectory.

"We need to know the exact moment when he lowers the shield," Phoebe said pensively, shifting an increasingly restless Ben to her hip. "If he's holed up to plan his next move, once he lowers the shield he won't lose any time."

"If you can provide a few smaller crystals," Benjamin told her, "I think there's something in Cole's Book of Shadows that might help."

"I'll get the crystals," Paige said, heading to the trunk where they kept the crystals and gems while Leo went to fetch the Turners' Book of Shadows.

"You had better not be thinking of dropping this crystal." -- Erzsebet glared at Cole when she saw him start to lower his arm.

"We already know where he is," he argued, "and my arm is starting to ache."

"He might move," she admonished him. "After I get my powers back, you are free to take chances with yours; until then, do not move this arm."

"Fine," he sighed, but waited for his mother to look the other way before he rolled his eyes.

"You watch and learn," Phoebe told him as she walked past him with Ben in her arms, "and give me a full report afterwards."

Cole gave her an interrogative look and she proceeded:

"Your son needs a change and his afternoon snack as well; move this downstairs when you have a chance."

"Will do." -- Cole smiled at her before turning his attention back to his father as Paige returned with the crystals and Benjamin started to explain how to position them.

"Nana!" Ben called out, looking at Erzsebet over Phoebe's shoulder and waving a chubby hand at her.

"Come on, sweetie, we'll be right back and you can be with her then," Phoebe told him without stopping. "This diaper is in dire need of a change."

"Na-na!"

"Could you just come with us and be there while I change the diaper?" Phoebe asked with a sigh, stopping at the doorway and turning to Erzsebet. "The diaper change is enough of a drama as it is."

"As long as you keep in mind that I changed my last diaper one hundred and seventeen years ago," the demoness told her as they walked through the door, "and I am not planning a comeback."

"Not a word," Cole warned a grinning Paige as she put the last crystal in place and turned her eyes to him.

- x x x x x -

"So," Erzsebet said, staring grimly at the oval shaped opal stone that sat on the coffee table, "do you plan on ruining my day any further?"

"Mother…" Cole started to say, but she cut him off with an impatient wave of her hand.

"Because, really, you might as well just do it already and take the rest of the day off, go watch TV or something. Assuming, of course, that there is another television in this household, one that is not featuring a singing purple dinosaur."

"Dis!" Ben rejoiced, bouncing excitedly on her knees as Barney broke out in his "I love you" theme song.

"Mother…"

"Are you even sure that this works?" she snapped, pointing at the stone.

"Father is sure," he said defensively, and his mother turned her glare towards Benjamin.

"If your powers leave that area, the stone will heat up and glow," Benjamin assured her. "We used the same spell to track down Asmodeus," he reminded her, referring to the first demon they had vanquished together.

"It's been fourty minutes and nothing happened yet," Erzsebet sighed, frustrated. "And don't you remind me that we held longer sieges in the past," she hissed at Cole when he raised his eyebrows. "The last thing I need right now is to think about that accursed fortnight we spent in the surroundings of Zekraena."

Before Cole could reply, Leo orbed in, and Erzsebet promptly turned her attention to the Whitelighter, shooting him an inquisitive glare. When she, Phoebe and Ben had joined the others in the living room, the demoness hadn't been in the least pleased to know that the Elders had summoned Leo, and now she narrowed her eyes, watching him intently as he addressed Benjamin:

"They, hum… they think you should go back now. At least until the powers are retrieved and we can proceed."

Erzsebet huffed at Leo's words, but she didn't say anything and turned her attention back to Ben while Benjamin stood up with a good-natured sigh.

"They do have a point," he reasoned. "Right now, I'm not needed here."

"Uh-hum," Leo grumbled noncommittally, Benjamin's assessment clearly not shared by the five people who would have to entertain his very irked wife in his absence.

"Use this time to get some rest," Benjamin said, placing his hand on Erzsebet's shoulder. "Jumping between time zones has never agreed with you," he gently admonished her when she glared at him, "and the deprivation of your powers is taking its toll on you."

"I am fine," she said curtly. Benjamin only arched his eyebrows in response, and she gave in with an aggravated sigh: "I will rest."

Erzsebet turned back to Ben, who was now impatiently tugging on her sleeve to show her that the song had finished and the DVD menu was being displayed on the TV screen. While Phoebe used the remote to go back to the first song, the demoness deliberately inspected the DVD cover, making a point of ignoring the look that Benjamin exchanged with Cole over her head.

With one last pat on Cole's shoulder and a polite nod to the others, Benjamin vanished in the air, and for a moment the only sound in the room was the words of "A Circle's Shape Is Round" coming from the TV and Ben's merry babbling along.

"So," Phoebe finally spoke, turning to Erzsebet with as much poise as she could feign, "you'll be staying for dinner?"


	8. The Waiting Game

"**_Now_** you eat eggplant?"

Cole placed the fork back on his plate with a slightly guilty look on his face: he remembered all too well the epic eggplant battles of his childhood.

"These are white eggplants," he told his mother defensively. "I happen to like them better than the other kind."

She glared briefly at him before turning her attention back to her own plate with a contemptuous sniff, and Cole gingerly pulled a cabbage leaf over the zucchinis lest his mother spotted them, too.

Phoebe watched surreptitiously as the demoness poured gravy over the vegetables on her plate. As her mother in law took the first bite, deliberately tasting the food, Phoebe found herself holding her breath despite Cole's earlier assurance that Erzsebet would be more likely to judge her by her fighting skills than by her food.

Without a word, Erzsebet put the fork down and dabbed her lips with the napkin before taking a sip of wine, but she definitely brought the next bite to her mouth with more gusto, and Phoebe couldn't help but feel relieved even as she was fully aware of the ludicrousness of a Charmed One trying to impress her demonic mother in law with her culinary talents.

She didn't have to look at Piper to know that her older sister was smiling, the mother-in-law-less vixen. Then again, Phoebe thought as she reached out for her glass with a resigned sigh, how could one be mad at a sister who agreed to come over to dine with an upper level demon and even hauled her very unwilling husband along with her? Paige had lost no time making dinner plans with a friend, but Piper had agreed to come have dinner at the Turners' and help keep Erzsebet company.

"Baby," -- Cole's voice brought Phoebe out of her musings, "at what time will your interview begin tomorrow?"

"Interview?" Leo asked, giving her a curious look.

"Gail Reed in the Morning," Phoebe said. "The talk show," she elaborated when the Whitelighter's puzzled look didn't vanish. "Gee, Leo!" she exclaimed in good-natured exasperation. "Just this morning I was asking Piper if she could watch Ben tomorrow."

"I missed breakfast today," he reminded her.

"Still, I told everyone about this last Tuesday, over dinner."

"Missed that one, too," Leo said with a sheepish shrug.

"Well, your wife should of told you," Phoebe pouted.

"I should," Piper owned mindfully, smiling at her sister who had already spent more time trying on outfits for that interview than she had for any date Piper could remember.

"Gail Reed hosts a nationwide talk show," Phoebe proudly told Leo, "and tomorrow she'll be interviewing the author of 'Ask Phoebe', aka yours truly."

"Are you sure that you can all be back at a moment's notice if the charm shows that the Chameleon is moving?" Erzsebet asked Cole while Phoebe told a properly impressed Leo the details of her upcoming TV appearance.

"As soon as the stone starts to glow, Piper will text message Phoebe, Paige and me to give us an excuse to bail out of our respective appointments," he assured her. "And then she'll call Leo, and he'll pick me up at the courthouse while Paige goes get Phoebe at the studio."

"I can't for the life of me understand why you chose to go back to human courts," his mother sighed, shaking her head and turning her eyes back to her plate, "when at a trolls' court you could so easily ask for a recess to go demon hunting, with no need to make up excuses."

"How did you know I've been taking some cases at trolls' courts?" he asked, intrigued.

"Sarsour told me."

"What! Is Sarsour back in the Underworld?" -- Cole's stomach sank at the thought of what might have caused Sarsour to leave the elves' company.

"Not that I know," Erzsebet said conversationally, her eyes still trained on her meal. "And I believe I would know if he was. After all, **_he_** stopped by to let me know when he was leaving," she added frostily.

Cole opened his mouth to reply, thought again, scratched his head and finally closed his mouth again. _Life lesson for when Ben is older: if you cause your mother to believe you're dead, even if unintentionally, you'll be apologizing for the rest of your life._

"To answer your question, I have to be at the studio at eight," Phoebe came to his rescue, filling the silence. "Which reminds me, I'd rather take the first watch tonight," she proceeded, motioning toward the stone that sat on the table beside Erzsebet's plate, "if that's okay with the rest of you."

"I'll take the second shift," Cole said. "The hearing only begins at ten; I can make up for the lost sleep in the morning."

"How many shifts are we talking about here?" Leo asked.

"I'm thinking only four," Cole told him. "We can make it from eleven tonight until seven tomorrow morning with four shifts of two hours each."

"Sign me up for the third shift, then" said the Whitelighter. "I'm going to bed early today: I have to be in Memphis at eight thirty tomorrow morning."

"That leaves only the fourth shift," Erzsebet chimed in. "I'll take it."

She snorted when her offer was met with surprised looks:

"Oh, please! That Chameleon would have held an auction of my powers before she" -- she pointed at Piper -- "managed to toddle her hundred-month-pregnant ass here to warn us."

"She's probably right," Piper said, unruffled. She wasn't about to take offense to a statement that was going to spare her from waking up at 5am.

"That settles it then," Phoebe said with a smile, just glad that she wasn't the one in charge of waking the demoness up before sunrise.

"So, hum..." -- Leo shifted on his seat, the extent of the trouble he had just gotten into beginning to sink in -- "How should I wake you up?"

"With black coffee," Erzsebet replied dryly.

- x x x x x -

"He usually eats a piece of fruit at around ten..."

"Apple sauce or mashed banana," Erzsebet impatiently cut him off. "Cole, your wife has already spent a good half an hour harping on every single thing Ben can possibly need or want this morning." -- she reached out and stopped the toddler from hitting his own head with the xylophone mallet he had been gleefully waving around the nursery -- "Which, mind you, I bore with uncharacteristic patience," -- she stroke the xylophone keys a couple of times, hoping that Ben would get the idea -- "and with a civilness that would have raised quite a few eyebrows in the Underworld."

"You might want to ask yourself, though," she proceeded while extricating Ben from the frilled curtains in which he had managed to entangle himself, "if you really want to wear out what is left of my goodwill when it's not even ten in the morning yet."

Instead of answering, Cole leaned on the doorframe and dug his hands into his pockets, not quite sure of how he felt seeing his mother sitting on the nursery's rocking chair while Ben frolicked around the room.

"Piper is just across the backyard, if you need her," he quietly changed the subject.

"Oh, I **_will_** need her," Erzsebet asseverated. "The moment Ben needs a diaper change, I will. In fact," she added, watching with mild curiosity as Ben crawled under the crib for no obvious reason, "I intend to drop him at your in law's and come right back here to wait until he is all nice and clean again, just to make sure it doesn't bring back any long buried, unpleasant memories."

"Mother," Cole hastily interrupted her, "I have to stand before a judge in forty minutes and dismantle the DA's case piece by piece. I can't possibly do that if I have a mental image of myself in diapers in my head."

"Last time I checked, **_ you_** were a DA," she remarked, raising a quizzical eyebrow at him even as she helped Ben wiggle his way out from under the crib.

"Last time you checked, I still had my demon powers and was out trying to kill the woman who's now the mother of my son," he reminded her. "Look, I gotta go now," he said, glancing at his watch. "I'll catch you up on my career over lunch."

"Ben, Daddy's leaving for work now," he said, resting one knee on the floor and pulling the toddler to him. "Be good," he added before planting a kiss on his son's cheek.

"Goo," Ben merrily echoed, because he knew how much Daddy liked to hear it.

"And make sure Nana behaves, too," Cole added in a stage whisper, affectionately ruffling the toddler's hair.

His mother eyed him and he sighed.

"Mother, I'll be back in three hours tops; just don't kill Piper in the meantime, and don't get yourself vanquished, either."

"I'm doing my best here," she said wryly.

"I know, mother," Cole said gently. "And I appreciate it. See you at lunch," he added, standing up.

"Cole?" Erzsebet called out just as he was leaving.

"Yes, mother?" -- he stopped at the doorway and gave her an interrogative look.

"Kick some ass."

"Don't I always?" Cole said, his grin not vanishing even when she humphed and rolled her eyes.

He winked at Ben before leaving the room, and smiled when the toddler waved a chubby hand at him:

"Buh-bah."

"The DA will never know what hit him," Erzsebet said evenly to the toddler after Cole was gone.

- x x x x x -

"So," Gail Reed said, leaning across her desk, "do you think the advice that you give to readers who write to ask you about their kids has changed now that you're a mother yourself?"

"God, yes!" Phoebe said, laughing. The audience and Gail laughed along with her, and Phoebe waited for the laughter to subside before she proceeded, sobering: "It's not that I gave thoughtless advice back when I didn't have children; it's just..." -- she hesitated, smiling at the thought of the little imp she had left at home -- "You think that you've got everything covered. Everything. Your house is childproof to the point of inconvenience. Your child is never left without adult supervision." -- she sighed -- "And then you blink. You just. Blink." -- Phoebe shook her head, half smiling and half grimacing at the memory -- "Next thing you know, he's covered in dirt and has a fern leaf sticking out of his mouth."

The entire set erupted with laughter again, and Phoebe chuckled, too.

"I swear," she said, still laughing. "It was just one second. Just a moment ago he was enthralled by his toys, and then suddenly it was 'ravage Mommy's plants time'."

"So, to answer your question," she proceeded with a smile, "while the advice is still the same, now there's also this relatedness that wasn't there before. When you tell me that your child loves butter cookies to bits... and hides them in places that you only find by following the trail of the ants," -- she turned to the audience and placed her hand over her chest in a gesture that made them laugh again -- "I hearyou, sister. I really do."

- x x x x x -

Ben watched with great interest as the paper napkin he had thrown over the banister swirled and twiddled on its way to the first floor. Pretty. Suddenly the breeze coming through the open window blew the napkin out of Ben's view and the toddler frowned, intrigued. He watched the spot where the napkin should be for a moment before turning to Nana again.

"Hi!" -- he chirped before taking another pretty, pretty, colorful napkin out of the box she was holding for him and sending it over the banister to go join its peers downstairs.

- x x x x x -

"I wish I could be a fly on the wall," Piper sighed, tapping her fingers on the monthly report the manager of P3 had given to her the day before, "to know what's going on there."

Leo looked up from the loose baseboard he was fixing and she shrugged:

"I know that if Cole believed there was any chance she would be mean to Ben, he would have put his foot down about Ben staying here with us. And Phoebe trusts Cole's judgement, and we must trust their judgement when it comes to Ben's well being..."

"But...?" Leo stretched the word, encouraging her to proceed.

"You know how sweet and trusting Ben is," Piper said, toying with the report she was holding. "She might hurt his feelings even if she doesn't mean to. He'll expect her to play with him, and to cuddle him, and..."

"Piper," Leo gently admonished her, and Piper sighed, placing the report back on her desk.

"Ben will be fine," he assured her, standing up and going to stand behind her chair, rubbing her shoulders. "If her aloofness didn't bother him yesterday, I find it unlikely that it'll bother him today. That's the way she is, and he doesn't seem to have a problem with it." -- he leaned towards her and kissed the top of her head. -- "He seems to like being around her, even if she's not going to be all doting on him."

- x x x x x -

"Dis?" Ben asked, pointing at the picture in the very expensive coffee table book that was opened on Erzsebet's knees.

"That's a hoary marmot," Erzsebet said, reading the caption.

"Dis?"

"That's a porcupine."

"Dis?"

"Beaver."

"Dis?" -- the plump little finger traveled back to the first picture and Erzsebet obligingly started all over again.

"Hoary marmot."

Erzsebet shifted position on the couch to better accommodate the toddler and the book on her lap; she had already read the names of the same animals twice, and if her memories of the early years of a certain kick ass lawyer were any indication, she'd still be naming them for quite a while.

- x x x x x -

"I have to agree with Mr. Turner here, Mr. Grant," the judge said, leaning back on her chair and giving the DA a critical look. "Unless you have something else up your sleeve, I'm going to not only dismiss this case but also hold a serious grudge against you for the waste of my time that this hearing represented."

"Your honor, I'm sure the..." the District Attorney started to speak but the judge cut him off:

"Do you have any more evidence to present, Mr. Grant?"

"No," he sighed.

"Then the case is dismissed," the judge declared dryly, banging the gavel. "Mr. Nash, you're free to go."

Cole smiled and lightly patted his client's back as the other man let out a relieved breath. Andrew Nash was a small man with an almost pathological fear of authority, who had earlier confessed to his lawyer that he had had little sleep since he had been charged with robbery.

"Thank you, Mr. Turner," he said with a grateful smile, holding out his hand.

"Just doing my job," Cole said, shaking his client's hand and returning his smile.

"Daddy, daddy, you won!" -- both man turned around to see the young girl who was running towards them, dark brown pigtails bouncing gleefully around.

"Mr. Turner won, Buttercup," Andrew happily corrected his daughter as he reached out over the courtroom banister to pick her up, and the girl giggled when Cole winked at her.

"You behaved very well, Tanya," Cole told her with a smile. "Sitting there all nice and quiet, just like a big girl."

"I was taking care of mommy," Tanya proudly announced, pointing at Mrs. Nash, who had just joined them.

"Yeah, those mommies," Cole agreed with a straight face, "they can be quite a handful."

- x x x x x -

"So," Erzsebet explained to Ben while she braided her hair, watching him through the vanity mirror, "we'll tell your parents that you ate a banana, but there is no need to mention the whipped cream and the peanut butter unless someone asks a direct question."

The toddler was sitting on the floor in his parents' bedroom, chewing on Mr. Floppy's ear and watching Nana with mild interest.

"And, if I were you, I wouldn't say anything about the incident with the remote, either. After all, it's not even broken."

"No no." -- Ben mindfully shook his head. That 'broken' word usually meant trouble.

"It's good to know that we are on the same page here," Erzsebet said, tying the end of the braid with a small piece of ribbon. "Now," she said, standing up, "it's about time you have lunch. Are you hungry yet?"

"I'll take that as a yes," she said when Ben promptly lifted his arms to be picked up. "Come on," she said, picking up the toddler and the stuffed bunny, "let's see what we can loot across the backyard."


End file.
